Your home knows you. Growers know your plants.

Ava signs in to Fern with Apple. Her account carries her real name, the profile photo she added, her time zone, and her location, which Fern uses to move a watering when rain is coming to her balcony. When she makes a home called Flat 4B and invites Sam, Sam sees "Ava" and her face on every shared plant, every "Done by Ava · Living room".

A few weeks later she opens Growers to ask whether her monstera's yellow leaf is anything to worry about. Here she's someone else: @ava_grows, with a photo of her balcony instead of her face and "Lisbon" as her place. Nobody on Growers knows her surname, her street, or that she shares a flat with Sam.

That's two profiles for one person, and it's one of the decisions in Fern we're happiest with.

Two audiences, two kinds of trust

The people in your home are people you invited. You know them, they know you, and they need to know it was you who watered the fig, so Fern shows them your name and your face. That profile comes from your account, and it's the one you'd expect.

Growers is different. It's a community of strangers who happen to love the same plants, spread across cities and countries. They don't need your legal name to tell you your pothos is overwatered. They need a name to call you, your plants, and maybe a rough idea of your climate. A good community profile is built for exactly that, and an account profile isn't.

So Fern keeps them as two separate things. The join screen says it in one line: "This is the only part that's public."

What Growers see, and what they never see

Before anyone joins, Fern lays it out in two short lists. Under "Others will see" there's a Community photo you pick, your name and handle, your bio and a place label if you add them, and the posts and comments you choose to share. Under "Never shared" there's your plants and care history, your households, your email, and your exact location.

That second list matters more than it looks. Fern knows quite a lot about you because it's useful: where you are, so it can follow the weather; who you live with, so care can be shared; every watering, so it can learn each plant's rhythm. None of that has a path onto a public screen. Your Growers profile is its own record, built from what you typed into it, so there's nothing to leak.

Location is the clearest example. Your account knows your coordinates, because "rain is due tomorrow" needs them. Your Growers profile has a place label you write yourself, "A city or region. Never your exact location.", and if you like, the name of your climate, such as "Mediterranean climate". It never shows a city you didn't type or a dot on a map.

You choose who you are there

Joining Growers takes a minute. Fern starts your display name from your account so there's nothing to type if you're happy with it, and suggests a handle you can take or change. The handle is 3 to 30 characters, letters, numbers and underscores, and it's yours for good.

The photo is separate too: "A photo just for Community. It doesn't change your Fern profile photo." Plenty of people would rather show a plant than their face to strangers, and a lot of the best profiles on Growers are a well-lit windowsill. At home, Sam still sees the photo he knows.

Then a short version of the rules, five lines: be kind, share your own photos, advice is a second opinion, keep it safe, keep things private. You tick "I've read the rules and I accept them", and you're in. The rules sit with the Growers profile, which is where they belong. They're about how we treat each other in public, not about your plants.

Nothing happens behind your back

Two profiles also make one promise easy to keep: "Nothing is posted for you. Household activity always stays in your home."

Marking a plant watered, repotting it, adding a new one to Flat 4B: all of that is home activity, and it never turns into a public post on its own. A plant only reaches Growers when you share it, and each plant has its own setting for who can see it. Growers even has its own default for that, "New plants start as", so you can decide once whether new plants begin private or shared. Plants in a home start as "My household".

Growers settings stay with Growers. "Let growers find me" decides whether you appear in search and suggestions. "Show my climate on my profile" decides whether the climate name appears. Who can comment on your posts is set there too. None of these touch your home, your reminders or your account.

Plant care keeps working, whatever happens in public

Communities need moderation, and Fern has it: reports, blocks, and, rarely, a pause from the community for someone who keeps breaking the rules. Because Growers is its own profile, a pause applies to that profile and nothing else.

Someone paused from Growers still gets their watering reminders, still sees their home, and still has every plant and every note they've ever made. Their monstera doesn't pay for an argument in the comments. Plant care is the reason Fern exists, so nothing that happens in public is allowed to switch it off.

It works the other way too. Plenty of people use Fern only for their own plants, or only with the people they live with, and never open Growers at all. For them there's no public profile to set up, no handle to pick and no rules to accept. The community is something you join, when you want to, with a profile made for it.

One app, two kinds of closeness

Fern is a place for two kinds of closeness. One is the people who share your windowsills and take turns with the watering can. The other is the people across the world who know exactly why your calathea's leaves are curling. They deserve different things from you: your name and face for the first, your plants and a name you chose for the second.

Giving each one its own profile is how Fern lets you be fully yourself at home and comfortably public with your plants, without ever having to wonder which one is showing.