Build a Plant Care Tracker with Smart Reminders: Day 1 - Plant Database Explorer
Level: Beginner
Projects in this week’s series:
This week, we progressively build a plant care tracker with smart reminders using Python.
Why build this? Because plants die when we forget to water them. Whether you’re a plant parent with dozens of houseplants or just starting your indoor garden — automated care tracking ensures your plants thrive!
What you’ll learn: This series teaches you API integration with plant databases. These skills apply to any tracking or reminder application.
Day 1: Plant Database Explorer (Today)
Day 2: My Plant Collection Tracker
Day 3: Care Analytics & Reports
Today’s Project
We’re starting with the foundation: we’re creating a tool that connects to Perenual’s plant database, searches for plants by name, displays comprehensive care information, and helps you discover the perfect plants for your home.
You’ll learn how to work with plant APIs, extract care instructions, and build a searchable plant encyclopedia!
Project Task
Create a plant database explorer that:
Searches plants by name using Perenual API
Displays detailed plant information
Shows care requirements (water, sunlight, care level)
Displays toxicity info (pet-safe or toxic)
Shows watering and pruning schedules
Lists growing tips and special care notes
Saves favorite plants to CSV
Browses popular houseplants
This project gives you hands-on practice with plant APIs, data extraction, care guide parsing, and building search tools — essential skills for building lifestyle and wellness applications!
Expected Output
The program we will build lets the user explore the plant api. For example, here the user is checking if the database contains the “Strelitzia” plant so the user enters the keyword “Strelitzia” and the program returns the complete record about that plant:
Setup Instructions
Get Free API Key:
Visit: https://perenual.com/docs/api
Sign up for free account
Get API key (300 calls/day free)
Create
.envfile:
PERENUAL_API_KEY=your_api_key_hereInstall Required Packages:
pip install requests pandas python-dotenvComing Tomorrow
Tomorrow we’ll build a plant care tracker — add plants to your personal collection, and track watering dates.
Skeleton and Solution
Below you will find both a downloadable skeleton.py file to help you code the project with comment guides and the downloadable solution.py file containing the correct solution.
Get the code skeleton here:
Get the code solution here: