How does your garden grow? How about in fast forward?
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If you’re the type of gardener who starts every day with a quick tour just to see how well everything is blooming, you’ll get the idea behind PlantCam. It’s a four-megapixel time-lapse digital camera that captures mini-movie frames of your plants as they grow. Created by Wingscapes, the PlantCam operates much like the company’s Audubon BirdCam, a motion-sensor camera that photographs wildlife at the backyard perch, feeder or nest.
PlantCam, housed in a weatherproof case, is easy to mount on a tripod, post or even a tree trunk. Leave it alone to do its thing and pretty soon you’ll have all the pieces to stitch together a slow-motion film of a bud opening or a leaf unfurling.
It took about five minutes for me to set up the camera and lash it to an arbor post with a bungee cord. Since most of my plants are about to enter their dormant phase, there isn’t much about to bloom. But I am interested in seeing how daylight moves through the garden and illuminates my perennials and grasses. I set the camera to snap a scene every hour and ran the camera for two days. There also is a “By Light” setting that tells the camera to resume shooting when there is enough morning light to make an image.
There are two ways to make movies. One is to stitch the frames together in the camera and then upload a short film to the computer. Or, if you want a jazzier film, upload the frames to your computer and use a video editing program to enhance the clips. I used Windows Movie Maker to create this short video with credits and music. Then I uploaded it to YouTube to share with my fellow garden geeks.
In Southern California, you can find or order PlantCam, which costs $79, at Armstrong Garden Centers, Green Thumb Nursery and Wild Birds Unlimited.