Ask Pip Join the beta

A gardening companion that helps you understand your plants.

Ask Pip helps you understand each plant through its own story, so you can care for it with confidence. It begins with roses.

Join the beta Open Ask Pip

Free during the beta, by invitation. For gardeners in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

Pip waving from a garden path, with roses on a trellis behind
“Hello, I'm Pip. Think of me as the friend who's read every book on roses but still wants to see yours with their own eyes before saying anything useful.”

What Pip does today

Ask Pip is at its first stage. Today it helps with established Hybrid Tea, Floribunda and Grandiflora roses.

  • A guided winter pruning session

    Pip first checks with you that today is a good day: that your rose has settled in, that it is dormant, and that your tools are ready. Then you look at the rose together, one thing at a time: dead wood, damaged growth, crossing stems, inward-growing stems, weak or crowded growth, the main framework and suckers. For each one you check the real rose and choose what happens.

  • Care through the year

    Watering, mulch, feeding, deadheading and getting ready for winter, with the advice that fits the season picked out for you.

  • Questions gardeners ask

    Tap a common question, such as “Why isn't my rose flowering?”, and Pip answers from researched advice. Where Pip has no answer yet, it says so.

  • A check for the growing season

    A short check for blind shoots, which can only be seen while a rose is in growth.

  • A journal for each rose

    Your photos, your notes, and what you looked at and decided each time, kept together as that rose's history.

Pip can keep a journal for any rose. Guided pruning is for the three rose types above. Everyday care advice draws on United Kingdom and United States sources today, and Pip says so. Month-by-month timing for each country is still being reviewed.

How it works

  1. An Ask Pip screen headed Looking, together, in which Pip says it will ask for photographs and point out what it notices

    1Pip shows you what to look for.

    One thing at a time, with what to check on the rose. For dead wood, Pip can also look at your photograph and say what it notices.

  2. An Ask Pip screen headed You check the real thing, in which Pip explains that a photo flattens everything

    2You check the real rose.

    A photograph can mislead. Light, angle and shadow can all fool it. So nothing is settled until you have looked at the plant itself.

  3. An Ask Pip screen explaining the choice called Cut

    3You decide.

    For each thing you find, you choose: Cut, Leave, Decide later, or Get experienced local help. Before any cut, Pip asks you to trace the stem with your own hand.

Pip, gesturing while speaking

“I notice, I don't decide. Your eyes on the real plant beat my eyes on a photo, every time.”

Why you can trust what Pip says

  • It is researched.

    Every piece of care advice comes from research gathered from reputable horticultural sources, such as university extension services, horticultural and rose societies, and rose nurseries. The research is gathered with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), and the Founders review and approve it before Pip may use it.

  • It shows its sources.

    Wherever Pip shares care advice, “Where this comes from” lists the sources behind it, with links so you can read them yourself.

  • It shows how sure it is.

    Each piece of advice carries its own confidence rating, from Very High to Very Low. The rating reflects how reliable the sources are, how well they agree, and what is still uncertain.

  • It says when it doesn't know.

    Where the evidence is thin, or sources disagree, Pip tells you. “Not sure” is a good answer, from Pip or from you.

Ask Pip is in beta, and its guidance has not been reviewed by a horticultural expert. Pip offers guidance. You decide what happens to your rose.

An Ask Pip answer to the question Why isn't my rose flowering, with each statement showing its confidence rating
Pip in a garden, gesturing towards a rose bush in flower

Marie's Story

Marie had never planned to grow roses. Then one spring afternoon her sister Sarah arrived carrying an Iceberg rose, and together they planted it beside the path.

By its second winter the rose had grown strongly. Marie stood in front of it with a pair of secateurs and could not make the first cut.

With Pip, there was no need to hurry. She named the rose Sarah's Rose, photographed it, and looked at one stem at a time. Pip offered a possible reading. Marie found the real stem, examined it and said what she could see. She cut the dead wood, left one stem alone to watch it, and decided to show another to someone experienced.

“The first question isn't what to cut,” she told Sarah that spring. “It is what you're actually looking at.”

One gardener. One rose. One careful decision at a time.

Read Marie's Story in full

Our vision. This is where we are heading, not what Pip does today.

Where Ask Pip is going

AskPIP exists to help gardeners grow in their understanding of each individual plant through its unique story, so they can care for it with confidence.

Roses are where we begin. Whether a gardener is pruning a rose, diagnosing an apple tree, nurturing a vegetable garden or caring for a treasured specimen, AskPIP exists to help them understand the individual plant before them.

How more plants will be added

Behind Pip is the Plant Intelligence Platform. Its Knowledge Curation System is how a gardening question becomes advice Pip can give:

  1. The question is researched with the help of AI, and every source is recorded.
  2. The findings are written up for the Founders, with how strong the evidence is and where sources disagree.
  3. The Founders review and approve them.
  4. Approved findings become records Pip can use. Each statement keeps its sources and its confidence rating.
  5. The Founders approve those records, and only then are they published to Pip.

These are the steps that built Pip's rose knowledge. Each new plant will be added the same way.

A story for every plant

Each observation, decision and outcome adds to a plant's continuing story. Today Pip keeps that story safe in the plant's journal. In time, Pip will draw on it, so the advice fits the plant in front of you and what has happened to it.

Pip giving a thumbs up

Who is behind Ask Pip

Ask Pip is made by its two Founders. We started it to help gardeners grow in understanding, not merely to answer questions.

Every piece of advice Pip gives is researched from named sources, and we approve it ourselves before Pip may use it. We also decide who joins the beta. If you write to us, one of us will read it.

founders@askpip.garden

Become a beta testing partner

We are inviting gardeners to use Ask Pip on their own roses and tell us how it goes. It is free during the beta.

Who we are looking for: gardeners who grow Hybrid Tea, Floribunda or Grandiflora roses, in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada.

What we ask: use Ask Pip with your own roses, and tell us what worked and what didn't. Pip offers a short feedback form after a session.

Request an invite

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Which roses do you grow?
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We use your details only to consider your request and to contact you about Ask Pip. See our privacy page.

Get involved

  • Join the beta

    Grow Hybrid Tea, Floribunda or Grandiflora roses? Use Ask Pip on your own roses and tell us how it goes.

    Request an invite

  • Follow progress

    Not ready to join, or growing something else? Leave your email and we will tell you when there is news, such as a new plant.

  • Share feedback and ideas

    Tried Ask Pip, or have an idea for it? We read everything.

    Send feedback

  • Partner with us or support us

    Rose societies, garden clubs, nurseries and supporters: we would like to hear from you.

    Email the Founders

About this beta

Ask Pip is in beta. Its care guidance is researched from reputable horticultural sources, and each piece shows its sources and a confidence rating. It has not been reviewed by a horticultural expert. Pip offers guidance, and you decide what to do with your rose. If you are unsure, ask an experienced local gardener.