Stop shoving your horticulture down my throat!

If you’ve ever bought plants, you know that they come with little plastic cards inserted into the soil to tell you the basics of how to grow each one successfully. They tell you what sort of soil, sunlight, and water the plant likes. Most of us appreciate these instructions because we want a flourishing plant and we know we aren’t experts.

But I imagine there’s a certain sort of person who might buy some plant and find the whole business of being told what to do irritating. “Just who do they think they are to try to control me like that? If I feel like watering this plant, I’m going to water it. How dare they try to tell me what “over-watering” it will do! I don’t have any “partial shade” at my house, so I’ll just put it in the sun. After all, it’s my plant, and I’ll do with it what I want. The gall of some people!

Now the interesting thing about this approach is how it completely misunderstands the purpose of the cards. They aren’t there to oppress the aspiring gardener. They’re they to assist him. And it isn’t really a question of personal liberty. It’s more a matter of getting the results you hoped for in buying the plant in the first place.

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