In this episode of Futurise, Rob Price speaks with Lyn Callender-Easby, founder of DearGarden, an AI-enabled gardening platform designed to simplify and personalise garden planning. What starts as a discussion about gardening quickly evolves into a broader reflection on how agentic AI supports complex decision-making, preserves expertise and brings structure to creative tasks.
How Personalised Artificial Intelligence Transforms Everyday Decision-Making
Lyn explains that moving from South Africa to the UK exposed her to a completely different climate and gardening culture. The hands-on mentorship she once relied on was no longer accessible, and while online sources offered inspiration, they lacked practical, actionable recommendations. This gap between information and real execution became the foundation for DearGarden.
The platform evaluates soil, sunlight, climate, style and colour palettes to create fully personalised planting plans. This includes what to buy, how many plants are needed, and where each plant should go. Instead of focusing on aspirational visuals alone, DearGarden emphasises clarity, structure and real-world guidance.
Agentic Advisors and the Future of Human–AI Collaboration
One of the standout ideas in the episode is Petal, DearGarden’s AI garden companion. Petal behaves more like an advisory partner than a search tool. It is more like an early illustration of how agentic AI can offer contextual, personalised expertise. Rob and Lyn also discuss how artificial intelligence could help preserve human knowledge across generations by creating advisory agents based on diaries, notes and expert insights.
Looking ahead, Lyn shares her plans to introduce visualisation tools that allow users to preview their designed gardens. She also discusses user feedback, community involvement, and the challenges of early adoption as the product evolves.
This episode highlights how AI can elevate even deeply creative, human activities—bridging the gap between inspiration and meaningful action, and showing the growing potential of personalised, agentic AI in everyday expertise.
