Uncovering the Garden Professors’ cult of expert personality, as they go to extraordinary lengths to avoid admitting mistakes or learning anything.
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They might be the group admins or they might be well-regarded longstanding members, but almost any niche topic or hobby group online will have its handful of experts. But groups like this can often develop into something more sinister: the cult of expert personality.
My research study shows that drainage layers really do reduce the water retention of plant pots, contrary to popular mythbusting belief.
Tradescantias are often included on “toxic” plant lists, but these lists can be unreliable and inaccurate. In reality tradescantias are not severely dangerous to humans or animals.
Correctly identifying an unknown plant is a difficult task. Because of that, people often hope for easier ways to identify their plants. But there are no shortcuts to this process. The ID charts and AI apps people often turn to are unreliable and lead to misidentifications and misplaced confidence.
On the history and implications of the most controversial common name for tradescantia.
If you search online for information about variegated plants, you’ll find plenty of blog posts offering to explain how variegation works and describing two or three different types. I’ve read lots of those posts, both when I was first learning, and more recently when I’ve wanted to explain things to other people. But they’ve never […]
Plant seller Horti recently added an AI “plant doctor” to their website. Within hours of testing, it was offering potentially fatal advice.
Sometimes this plant is labelled as Tradescantia × andersoniana ‘Blushing Bride’, and sometimes it’s labelled as Tradescantia fluminensis ‘Maiden’s Blush’. But these names actually refer to two completely different cultivars!
Some people have suggested the plant has symptoms of a viral infection. Some have even gone as far as to claim that the plant should be quarantined or banned from sale for fear that it’s contagious. Others have grown the plant for years and report no evidence of the symptoms spreading to nearby plants.