Garden Journal Terms of Use
The short version:
- Garden Journal is free to download and use. There's no account to make.
- Your plants, notes, photos, and the hats you draw are yours, and they stay on your phone unless you share them or export a backup.
- Care schedules and reminders are friendly guidance, not professional advice.
- We don't have a copy of your garden (unless you send us one), so keeping a backup is up to you.
- Questions? Email sofritoconrecao@gmail.com.
1. Agreeing to these terms
These terms are an agreement between you and SofritoConRecao, the independent developer who makes Garden Journal: Pixel Plants (“Garden Journal” or “the app”). “We,” “us,” and “our” mean SofritoConRecao. These terms apply when you install or use the app. If you don't agree with them, please don't use it.
Our Privacy Policy explains how the app handles your information. Please read it too.
We may update these terms, for example when the app gains a new feature. We'll post the new version at sofritoconrecao.com/garden-journal/terms with a new effective date, and mention important changes in the release notes of the next app update. If you keep using the app after a change takes effect, the updated terms apply.
2. Your license to use the app
We give you a personal, nonexclusive, nontransferable license to install Garden Journal from Google Play and use it on Android devices you own or control. The app is licensed to you, not sold.
Please don't:
- copy, sell, rent, or redistribute the app or its art, except for sharing what these terms allow in sections 3 and 4;
- modify, decompile, or reverse-engineer the app, except where the law allows it anyway;
- remove or change any copyright or license notices;
- use the app to break the law or to infringe anyone else's rights.
3. Your content
Your plants, nicknames, notes, care history, photos, and the hats you draw are yours. They stay on your device, including pictures you add as hats. There's no account and the app has no internet access, so we never receive them unless you send them to us, and we claim no rights to them.
Only add photos and pictures you have the right to use.
When you share a hat card, a hat picture, a story card, or a backup, Android's share menu lets you choose where it goes, and you're responsible for what you share and who you share it with. Once it leaves your phone, the app or service you sent it to handles it under its own terms. A backup contains your photos, which can include location details your camera saved in them.
4. The app's art, and hats you remix
The app's own pixel art belongs to us: the plant sprites, the built-in hats, the hat templates, the garden scenes, and the icons.
In Hat Studio you can draw a hat from a blank canvas, start one from a template, or remix one of the app's hats. Then you can wear it in the app and share it, as a hat card or as the hat picture, with friends and online. Whatever you add is yours. Any of our art that ends up in your hat stays ours, and you have our permission to keep using it there for anything noncommercial.
| What | Wear or share it (noncommercial) | Sell it, or use it in another app, game, or product |
|---|---|---|
| A hat you drew from a blank canvas | Yes | Yes, it's yours |
| A hat made from your own picture | Yes | Yes, if the picture is yours |
| A hat you started from a template or one of the app's hats | Yes | Ask us first |
| Hat cards and story cards the app makes | Yes | Ask us first |
You're welcome to post screenshots and videos of the app, for example in reviews or on social media. A hat a friend shares with you still belongs to the friend who made it (any of our art in it stays ours).
5. Plant care info is guidance
The care schedules the app fills in for its built-in plant types, and the reminders it sends, are general starting points to help you keep a routine. They aren't professional advice, and every plant, home, and climate is different. Keep an eye on your plants, adjust their schedules, and check a trusted source when you're unsure. The app doesn't say whether a plant is toxic or safe for pets or people. We aren't responsible for the health of your plants.
Reminders are scheduled on your phone, so they depend on your device: the notification permission, the reminder switch in the app, battery-saving and Do Not Disturb settings, and your phone's clock. Android may deliver them a little late. Please don't rely on the app alone for anything that can't wait.
6. Backups and your data
Your garden lives only on your device. Android's automatic cloud backup is turned off for this app, and we don't keep a copy of your data, so we can't recover it if your phone is lost, broken, or reset, or if the app is uninstalled. Settings → Back Up Garden creates a backup file. Keep a recent one somewhere you trust.
A backup file isn't encrypted. Anyone who gets a copy can read it, so treat it like a private photo album. Restoring a backup replaces everything currently in the app (the app asks first). Reset All Data and uninstalling delete your garden from the device for good.
7. Optional purchases
Garden Journal is free to download and use. If and when the app offers an optional purchase, such as a one-time cosmetic unlock:
- You buy it through the Google Play Store app, Google Play processes the payment, and the Google Play Terms of Service apply. We never see your card or other payment details.
- Google Play shows you the price before you buy.
- A purchase belongs to the Google account you bought it with.
- Refunds: within 48 hours of buying, you can request a refund in Google Play. After that, email sofritoconrecao@gmail.com with the order number from your Google Play receipt. A refund never deletes anything you made in the app.
The Privacy Policy's Purchases section explains the order record Google Play shares with us. Nothing here limits refund or consumer rights you have under the law where you live.
8. Third-party services and licenses
Garden Journal runs on Android and is distributed through Google Play. Your use of those is covered by Google's own terms and policies, not ours. When you share something, the app you pick handles it under its own terms.
The app includes open-source software under its own licenses, and two fonts, Pixelify Sans and Nunito, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. You can read every license in the app under Settings → About → Open-Source Licenses. Those licenses, not these terms, govern those parts of the app.
9. Intellectual property
The app, its name and icon, its code, its pixel art, and its design belong to SofritoConRecao or its licensors and are protected by copyright and other laws. These terms give you no rights to them beyond the license in section 2 and the permissions in section 4. Google Play and Android are trademarks of Google LLC.
If you email us an idea or feedback, we're free to use it without owing you anything.
10. No warranties
We make Garden Journal with care, but it's provided “as is” and “as available.” As far as the law allows, we make no warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and noninfringement. We don't promise that the app will be free of bugs, that reminders will arrive on time, or that your data can't be lost.
11. Limits on liability
As far as the law allows, SofritoConRecao isn't liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, plants, or profits, that comes from using the app or not being able to use it. Our total liability for any claim about the app is limited to the amount you paid for the app's optional purchases in the 12 months before the claim, or US$10, whichever is more.
Some places don't allow these limits. If you live in one, they apply only as far as your local law permits. Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have that can't be waived by agreement.
12. Ending these terms
You can stop using Garden Journal at any time by uninstalling it. Export a backup first if you want to keep your garden. If you break these terms, your license to use the app ends. There's no account for us to close, and we can't reach the data on your phone.
We may update the app, change its features, or stop offering it on Google Play. Sections 3 through 6 and 9 through 13 still apply after these terms end.
13. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and applicable US federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If you use the app as a consumer, you also keep any protections that the mandatory laws of the place where you live give you. If something goes wrong, please email us first. We'd like the chance to fix it.
If any part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies. If we don't enforce a part right away, we haven't given up the right to. We may transfer these terms to someone who takes over the app; you can't transfer them. These terms are the whole agreement between you and us about using the app.
14. Ages 13 and up
Garden Journal is made for people 13 and older, and it isn't directed at children under 13. If you're under 18, or under the age of adulthood where you live, please read these terms with a parent or guardian.
15. Questions? Email us
For questions about these terms, a refund, or the app, email sofritoconrecao@gmail.com.