Operations software for fine gardening and estate horticulture
Your plants know when they need care. Now your software does too.
Kloro reads the heat each property has banked at its weather station and tells you when a plant reaches its prune, spray or feed window. You decide when to act; Kloro runs the visits, journals and billing around it.
Minneapolis–St Paul station, reading for Oct 31
3,321growing degree days
since January 1
Past a typical year's total
Season in review
All seven care windows we track here have opened and closed this year. Last to close: Magnolia scale crawlers, on August 12.
First next season: Panicle hydrangea, prune at 0–90 growing degree days.
A calendar can’t see spring coming.
On April 14, 2012, the Twin Cities had banked 188 growing degree days and the lilacs were in bloom. On April 14, 2013, the count was zero, and the lilacs held off until May 25.
A schedule written by the date treats those two Aprils as the same week. Aspire, Granum and Jobber plan recurring work by the calendar, so firms make up the difference the hard way: hours every week driving out to look, and timing that lives in one horticulturist’s head.
Two springs at Minneapolis–St. Paul
Heat banked since January 1, in growing degree days (base 50°F)
- 2012
- 2013
- 2012 lilacs bloomed Apr 14, at 188 GDD
- 2013 lilacs bloomed May 25, at 280 GDD
View the data
| Date | 2012 | 2013 |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 15 | 20 | 0 |
| Apr 1 | 162 | 0 |
| Apr 14 | 188 | 0 |
| May 1 | 243 | 62 |
| May 15 | 407 | 163 |
| May 25 | 575 | 280 |
| Jun 1 | 663 | 373 |
| Jun 15 | 953 | 567 |
This season at Minneapolis–St Paul
Each property is tied to a weather station; in Minnesota today that is Minneapolis–St Paul. Every day Kloro adds the day’s heat to the season’s total and checks it against the windows of the plants on that property. When one opens, an advisory goes to the people who plan the work.
Oct 313,321 growing degree daysno tracked window open
Growing degree days at base 50°F for the Minneapolis–St Paul station, accumulated from January 1. The dashed line is the station’s typical season. Each bar runs from the day a window opened to the day it closed.
The biology tells you when.
Kloro runs everything after.
Estimate
Scope & price the work
Agreement
Recurring service plan
Advisory
GDD window opens
Biology triggersVisit
Crew does the work
Journal
Before / after proof
Invoice
Auto-built from visits
Payment
Clients pay by ACH
Estimate
Scope & price the work
Agreement
Recurring service plan
AdvisoryBiology triggers
GDD window opens
Visit
Crew does the work
Journal
Before / after proof
Invoice
Auto-built from visits
Payment
Clients pay by ACH
What everyone around the garden sees
Kessler Mansion
Maintenance, Alpha crew
Bronze birch borer: protect the specimen birches
Adult flight has started at this property’s station.
The crew lead's phone
The day's route, punch in and out, and the advisory waiting at each stop — forms and photos that keep working when the signal does not.
Limelight hydrangea
Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’
- Zone
- North walk
- Count
- 6 shrubs
- Health
- Good
- Planted
- 2019
- Cut back before new growth34 GDD
- Fed, slow-release88 GDD
The plant record
Every plant on every property as a living asset: species, zone, health, replacement value and its care history, so the knowledge stays when people move on.
Garden journal
The crew cut the Limelight hydrangeas on the north walk back to strong buds before new growth started, so this summer’s flowers come on fresh wood.
Why were the hydrangeas cut back so hard?
They flower on this year’s growth, so cutting back before the buds broke means fewer, larger flower heads this summer. That’s from the crew’s note on the visit.
The owner's portal
A garden journal the family actually reads, every invoice beside the work it paid for, and answers drawn from their own visit notes and plants.
Invoice, built from visits
Paid by ACH- Maintenance visit, Alpha crew7.5 crew-hours
- Birch trunk protection3 trees
- Deadhead peonies, east border12 plants
- Mulch top-up, north beds2 cu yd
Labor billed from recorded activity, not the estimate.
The office
Visits review into a record the owner can read, the month's invoice builds itself from the work actually done, and owners pay by ACH.
Drawn from a sample account.
“We started Kloro because the best horticulturists we know carry their entire operation in their heads, and the software industry has only ever offered them lawn-care tools. We’re building it in the field, alongside the people who use it, until it’s right.”
The foundersStart with one property.
Let the biology lead.
Tie a single estate to its station, watch the advisories arrive at the right moment, then bring on the rest. We set every firm up ourselves.
Not ready to start? Get our field notes — phenology and field-ops writing, no noise.
Latest field note: Who remembers the garden?