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This project could be turned into a programming competition:

Start with (ideally) identical plants and conditions. After one year, find the program that did the best job (judging by the resulting plant).

Next: Adapt the code for different types of plants/flowers.

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Not everything can be automatized though. I believe a good gardener need constant interaction with the plants. I grew a few cannabis plants and I had to learn a lot in order to do it well (and I think I only scratched the surface). Watering is the easiest thing to do, but you also need to be able to provide the right nutrients, constantly check your plants for diseases or bug infections, and provide the right care if needed. Besides, even seeds from the same strain can evolve differently. Indoor growing is even more fascinating as you have even more control on your growing environment (you can even choose your light spectrum). Growing a plant is a great scientific experiment, it covers a lot of fields.

In that case the computer's task could be persuading humans to perform the things it's unable to.

That exists already. http://www.getgardenspace.com

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