Field guide

Almanac

The last twelve weeks

One stem a day. Tall and green is a day under the line. A seed head is the day something arrived.

The tally

How long did the feeds have you today?

45minutes

Where do I find this number?

On most Android phones: Settings, then Digital Wellbeing and parental controls, then the dashboard. Add up the apps you named. Round to the nearest five minutes. Rounding is fine. Guessing low is not, because the only person the valley can mislead is you.

This week

Tap any day to correct it. A blank day grows nothing and costs nothing.

Photograph

A card showing your valley

Light

Framing

The card shows what grew. It never shows what you lost, because a picture of your own screen time posted in public should not be a confession.

Settings

Minutes in the feeds before the valley starts to lose colour. Pick something you could hit this week, not something noble.

to

Stillness in the middle of a working day counts for less, because it was never really yours. Evening stillness counts for more.

A single line at a time you pick, to close the day. It is the only notification this app sends.

So the valley has the season you are actually standing in. Worked out from the date on this phone, never from your location.

One short buzz, only for a rare arrival. Nothing else in the app vibrates.

Which feeds

Names for your own reading, so the tally means something. They stay on this phone and the app cannot check them.

Your ledger

Everything the app knows is on this device. There is no account and no server to ask.

Wildergarden. It grows when you put the phone down.
Free, complete, and offline.

Our pledge

A subscription to help you use your phone less would be a conflict of interest. So there isn't one.

  • No subscription. No unlock, no premium tier, no cosmetic shop. All four biomes and all forty species are in the app you already have.
  • No advertising. There is no ad code in the build and no advertising identifier is read.
  • No account. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to log into, nothing to delete later.
  • No internet. The app does not request the internet permission, so Android will not let it open a connection at all. It also opts out of Android backup and device transfer, so the system cannot copy your ledger off the phone either.
  • No surveillance. Wildergarden never reads which apps you use. It asks you once a day and believes you.
  • One notification. At a time you choose, to close the day. Nothing is designed to pull you back in.
  • No streak shaming. Grace covers the first slip every week. Recovery is always faster than the damage. That ratio is deliberate.

This app wants you to stop opening it.

Wildergarden is one valley that only grows while your phone is face down. There is nothing to collect by tapping and nothing to check. That is the whole design.

It cannot see your other apps.

No usage permission, no internet, nothing watched in the background. Once a day you tell it how long the feeds had you, and it takes you at your word. The honesty is the mechanic.

Where is your line?

Minutes a day in the feeds before the valley starts losing colour. Pick a number you could actually hit this week.

60minutes a day

Which feeds are we talking about?

For your own reading only, so the daily tally means something. The names never leave this phone. You can skip this.

Come back tomorrow without coming back today.

The valley is bare tonight. Meadow grass arrives after your first still hour, and everything after that takes longer. Nothing here is worth staying up for.