Help & Support

Wildr helps you understand how your yard, garden, or outdoor space supports wildlife and biodiversity. You can add the plants you already have, discover native plant recommendations, track habitat features, and share your progress with others.

When you first open Wildr, you’ll be asked to enter your email address. Wildr will send a verification code to that address. Once verified, you’ll provide your first name, an optional last name, a handle (3–30 characters: letters, numbers, underscores, or hyphens), and your address. You’ll also be asked a couple of optional questions: your experience level with wildlife gardening, and how you heard about Wildr. Both can be skipped. After completing onboarding, new users are offered a guided tour of the app, which can also be skipped. You’ll then be taken to your Place where you can begin building your habitat profile.

After onboarding, your Place will be blank. You’ll see two options: Add Your Plants (to record what’s already growing) or Get Inspired (to explore native plant recommendations for your area). Either path will create your first planting area. You can always use both in the same area later.

Your handle is how other Wildr users find and recognize your Place if you choose to make it public.

My Place is your personal habitat profile. It’s where you manage your planting areas, plants, wildlife features, commitments, photos, Wildr Score, and profile information.

There are a few ways to get there. You can tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner of your Place to open Place settings, where you can update your name, description, photos, and privacy toggle. You can also tap the pencil icon directly next to your Place name or description to edit those individually. And if you tap the Public or Private indicator on your Place, it will take you directly to Place settings as well.

Tap directly on your avatar circle and select a photo from your device. The avatar is edited separately from the gear icon settings.

Tap the Add Photos button near the top of your Place, or tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner to open Place settings. The gear icon is also where you can manage your photos: delete them, or rearrange their order by long-pressing a photo and dragging it. Drag a photo to the top-left position to make it your first displayed image.

You can add up to 25 photos to your Place.

Tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner of your Place and toggle the visibility setting from Private to Public.

Public Places can be discovered by other Wildr users, including people near your location. Your Place may appear in the Explore section for nearby users.

Yes. Tap the gear icon and toggle visibility back to Private at any time.

Planting areas help you organize your yard into named sections, such as a front yard, backyard, pollinator garden, rain garden, or native meadow. Each area tracks its own plants, conditions, and wildlife impact.

No. If you only have one planting area, or prefer to see all your plants together, you can view your Place holistically without drilling into individual areas.

Planting areas make it easier to track what you’ve planted, organize recommendations, measure wildlife supported, and manage plants by location. They’re also a useful way to separate parts of your yard that have different growing conditions, like a sunny front yard versus a shaded backyard, so your plant recommendations stay relevant to each space.

Each planting area has two tabs: Planted and Wishlist. Planted is for plants that are already in the ground. Wishlist is for plants you’re considering adding. Your wildlife supported numbers and native plant species count are based on Planted plants only. A single planting area can have both.

When your Place is blank, you’ll see two options: Add Your Plants (if you want to record what’s already growing) or Get Inspired (if you want to start from recommendations). Either path walks you through adding plants first, then prompts you to name your new planting area. You can choose from preset names like My Backyard, Wildflower Meadow, or Front Planter, or enter your own.

Once your Place has at least one planting area, you’ll see an option to add a new one. You can create as many as you need to represent different parts of your property.

Open a planting area and tap the Planted tab. Browse the plant list and tap any plant card you want to add. Tapping a card moves it to the top of the list and highlights it in black. You can select as many plants as you like this way. When you’re done selecting, tap the yellow Add Plant(s) button to add them to your planting area. To add more plants later, open the planting area and tap the yellow + button in the upper-right corner. You can then browse the list or search to find additional plants.

Use the search bar and begin typing the plant’s common or scientific name. If you don’t find a match, try a different common name, the scientific name, or fewer search terms.

Open a planting area and tap the Wishlist tab. Before showing you recommendations, Wildr will ask two optional questions to help narrow the list. First, you’ll be asked about the type of planting area: flower bed, pollinator meadow, rain garden, and so on. Your selection pre-filters the plant list to show the most relevant types (a flower bed, for example, won’t surface trees). If you’re not sure, tap Create Your Own to skip the pre-filtering. Next, you’ll be asked about site conditions like sun and moisture. You can tap I’m not sure yet for either question and still get a full list of recommendations.

Once you see the recommended plant list, you can use the filter options to adjust by conditions and plant type. Plant type breaks down into Trees, Shrubs, and Other, where Other covers perennials, grasses, ferns, vines, and similar plants. Tap any plant card to select it: it will move to the top of the list and highlight in black. Select as many as you like, then tap the yellow Add Plant(s) button to add them. To come back and add more later, open the planting area and tap the yellow + button in the upper-right corner.

Recommendations are drawn from plants native to your EPA Level III Ecoregion, combined with guidance from Wildr’s network of botanists, native plant experts, and ecological restoration specialists. Plants are ranked by their wildlife value first: those that support the greatest number of butterfly and moth caterpillars and specialist bees appear at the top of the list. Expert recommendations fill in behind that.

Yes. Open the planting area and tap the pencil icon next to the planting area name. From there you can update the name and adjust site conditions like sun and moisture levels.

Open the planting area’s plant list and tap the menu icon in the upper-right corner, just to the left of the yellow + sign. Select one or more plants, then choose Delete.

Yes. From the Planted tab, tap the menu icon in the upper-right corner of the plant list, just to the left of the yellow + sign. Select the plants you want to move and choose a different planting area as the destination.

Open the planting area and tap the pencil icon next to the planting area name. From the edit screen you’ll find the option to delete the planting area entirely. Deleting it removes the area and all its associated plants from your Place.

The wildlife supported number reflects how many butterfly and moth species can complete their caterpillar stage on your plants, plus the number of specialist bee species your flowering plants support. These counts are based on your Planted plants only, not your Wishlist. The native plant species number is a unique count of the distinct native species you have in the ground.

Your Wildr Score is calculated through a short quiz that evaluates your yard management practices, the amount of non-grass vegetation on your property, canopy coverage (depending on your region), habitat features you have in place, and observed biodiversity. The quiz lives outside the app.

Tap the Get your Wildr Score button on your Place profile. This opens the Wildr Score quiz. When you complete the quiz and return to the app, your score will populate automatically. If you have already taken the quiz previously, your score will appear when you tap the button and return, as long as you used the same email address as your Wildr account.

Make sure you completed the quiz using the same email address associated with your Wildr account. If you haven’t taken the quiz yet, tap Get your Wildr Score to get started.

Wildlife Features are habitat elements that support wildlife, such as brush piles, birdhouses, water sources, and other habitat structures.

From My Place, tap Add Wildlife Features, then tap the feature you’d like to add. If you’ve already added wildlife features, they’ll appear as a scrollable row on your Place. Swipe left through them to find the Add Wildlife Features button at the end of the row.

Yes. Tap the wildlife feature you want to remove, then tap the Remove from place button.

Commitments are habitat pledges related to your yard management practices and the actions you take to support wildlife.

Scroll to the Commitments section toward the bottom of your Place, tap a commitment card, and tap I Commit. Once added, your commitments appear as badges near the top of your Place. You can add more commitments directly from that badge area as well.

Your commitment appears as a badge near the top of your Place profile, where others can see the actions you’ve pledged to take. These badges are a way to stand behind your habitat goals publicly.

Yes. Commitments can be removed one at a time. Open the commitment you want to remove and tap the Remove Commitment button.

Invasive plants are non-native species that can spread aggressively and negatively affect local ecosystems and habitat quality.

Wildr shows you a set of 10 invasive species that may be problematic in your area. For each one, you’ll be asked whether you’ve observed it on your property. Plants you confirm go onto your watchlist. Once you’ve gone through the initial set, you can continue viewing more species or browse the full list of invasives for your region. If you’ve already added invasives to your watchlist, they’ll appear as a scrollable row on your Place. Swipe left through them to find the Add Invasives button at the end of the row.

Yes, but you’ll need to navigate there first. After going through your initial set of invasives, tap to view more species. Scroll to the bottom of that list and tap See All Invasive Plants. This opens the full US invasive plant database, where you can search for any specific species.

Tap the plant card for that species, then tap the Remove button to take it off your watchlist.

The Home page is your feed of content from the Wildr community and partners. It includes articles from Wildr’s partner organizations, short Wildr guides, showcased and nearby public Places, and other habitat news and updates.

Tap your avatar in the upper-left corner of the Home page to access app-wide settings. This is where you can update your avatar, name, and handle, open My Place Settings (including your address), and manage your account.

Explore is where you can discover public Places from other Wildr users. When you tap into someone’s Place, you can view their photos, the plants they’ve added, the invasive species on their watchlist, and the commitments they’ve made.

Yes. Explore currently shows public Places from users near your location. Broader community discovery is something we’re working toward in the future.

Yes. You can browse Explore while keeping your own Place private.

Only Public Places can be discovered by other users. Private Places are visible only to you.

No. Wildr does not display your exact address as part of your public profile.

Open the plant list, tap the menu icon in the upper-right corner, select the plant, and either delete it or move it to the correct planting area.

Check that you’ve granted photo permissions, that you have photos available in your library, and that your internet connection is active.

Make sure your Place is set to Public. Your Place must be visible before it can appear in Explore for nearby users.