Gardening can be both therapeutic and healing. For this reason, it can be an enjoyable and beneficial pastime. Unfortunately, some of us can't garden, either due to lack of space, equipment, or time. But don't worry, as these mobile gardening games provide an outlet.
While these gardening games are not the same as digging around in soil, gaming can still improve your mental health and decrease stress levels. So they're well worth exploring. With that in mind, here's a list of the best mobile gardening games for Android and iOS.
1. Viridi
As reported by both The Huffington Post and The Guardian, "millennials are obsessed with house plants." This is especially true for succulents, a type of smooth flora that retains water for drought-prone conditions.
Perhaps because of this demographic obsession, Viridi is a gardening game that I've personally been playing off and on for years.
The purpose of the game? To grow succulents in a pot. Yes, that's pretty much it.
Pretty to look at, calming to experience, and easy to maintain, Viridi is one of the few gardening games for adults that lets you grow succulents in realtime. After you pick out your pot and your starter arrangement, you can also name your garden. Once that's done, all you have to do is check on your pot once a day to water it, weed it, and watch the succulents grow.
It's important to stress that you can't forget to water these succulents: they don't need much, but if you don't maintain them, they'll dry out. Even if your plants die, however, you can still collect one free plant per week to add to your collection.You can also buy additional plants and gardening tools through the Nursery.
NB: While there is a PC version of Viridi on Steam, after playing both formats we can overwhelmingly say that this game is better suited to your phone.
Download: Viridi for Android | iOS (Free, with in-app purchases available)
2. Terrarium: Garden Idle
Tapping games are extremely popular. With a few finger movements, you can expand your in-game landscape while putting in a minimal amount of effort. Terrarium, a free-to-play gardening game, follows this trend.
Simple to use and devoid of stress, Terrarium is one of many gardening apps available to play, except in this case it's specifically tailored towards people who want to grow an apartment garden without worrying about the garden itself.
The goal: To unlock as many potted plants as possible, and put them on your window sill.
By tapping on those plants to increase their oxygen production, or by using boosters, you can upgrade your plants. This in turn will allow you to buy more.
While Terrarium does have ads, they don't appear very often. Many of them are skippable, depending upon how many oxygen bubbles you want to collect. Booster combos can make it really easy to climb the ranks. And when collecting plants, you can actually choose where you want to place them on your window sill, leaving the overall design of your garden up to you.
Our verdict?
Terrarium is more labor-intensive than Viridi, but it's still easy to play. If you want to learn more about gardening in your real-life home, you can check out our review of Botanium.
Download: Terrarium: Garden Idle for Android | iOS (Free, with in-app purchases available)
3. My Little Terrarium
Are you looking for gardening games that are more involved, intuitive, and customizable? Then you need to check out My Little Terrarium---not to be confused with Terrarium, which we talked about above.
Like the other apps on this list, it's one of many free-to-play gardening games for adults and kids. Set in a magical little fish bowl---featuring your garden, your fish pond, and your cat---My Little Terrarium is a green thumb gardening game where the goal is to customize multiple terrarium "worlds" through the use of plants, decorations, and gardening tools.
Like Viridi, you must water your in-game plants on a daily basis. These plants also gain points when you're away through the self-generation of gold.
While this self-generation tool is a cool feature, the best way to earn gold comes from My Little Terrarium's mini-games, along with its boosters. You can fish, play puzzles, or gain gold through watching ads. Once you have enough money, you can buy more plants.
Our verdict?
My Little Terrarium is one of the most engaging gardening games, but also takes the most effort to maintain. We recommend trying it out if you want a high degree of control over your plants.
Download: My Little Terrarium for Android | iOS (Free, with in-app purchases available)
4. Pocket Plants
Looking for complicated gardening games that require a lot of forethought? Then you need to try out Pocket Plants, a free-to-play mobile game that combines a healthy lifestyle, combo-building, and a green thumb.
The setup: In the game, the environment has become polluted. There is rotting garbage and open sewage spilling out of pipes. It is up to you, the novice gardener, to bring this local environment back to its former glory by growing plants to create a cleaner energy producer.
The main highlight of this game is the ability to combine plants in order to create better ones. As such, Pocket Plants seems to have endless customization abilities. It's fast moving, stylized, and engaging, with multiple garden maps and terrain styles that you can explore.
Additionally, you can link the game to your real-life exercise apps (such as Fitbit) so that each real-world activity helps you gain more in-game advantages.
Our final opinion? While the privacy policy for this app is a bit overreaching, the game is otherwise fun and unique enough to check out.
Download: Pocket Plants for Android | iOS (Free, with in-app purchases available)
Discover Your Inner Gardener on Your Phone
After playing these mobile gardening games, hopefully one (or all of them) will bring you some much needed rest and relaxation. If you have already played through all of the games, however, it may be time to step up gear with the best farming games on Android and iOS.