When did you last water your plants? How’s your bonsai tree doing today? Is the Ficus benjamina okay, did you make sure it has enough water for the weekend?

Caring for your plants is now easier, thanks to New York -based Botanicalls. Just get your green friends a bunch of Twitter accounts and install Botanicalls kits in the pots. The leaf-shaped transmitters in the pots measure the plants’ moisture levels and send the info to Twitter when it’s time to be watered. The plants can also send thank you tweets once you’ve offered them a drink. Assembling and installing the $100 Botanicalls kit requires a little bit of technical know-how though.  And a soldering iron and an Ethernet cable, not included in the kit. Maybe the next version of Botanicalls will be wireless.

Of course there are simpler and cheaper solutions available, or you can even just build yourself a self watering plant pot with instructions found online. But none of those systems talk back to you. Now my cat wants a Twitter account, too.

Karri Ojanen