The things we got wrong
This is a log of mistakes—not a list of virtues. A site like this doesn’t need to tell you how many plants we’ve grown or how many readers trust us. What matters is whether the advice here works when you try it.
If it doesn’t, we want you to know why, who noticed, and what changed.
Most sites hide their failures. We publish ours because the first green shoot isn’t magic—it’s proof the method worked. If it didn’t, we should have caught it before you did.
Three we had to fix
These are the three failures that forced us to rewrite how we test, write, and publish. Each one was ordinary—no grand disasters, just quiet, stubborn errors that slipped through. The worst part? They all stayed online for months.
How we failed at soil pH testing
- 1Wrong pH numbers in the guide
The soil test kit we recommended gave readings 0.5–1.0 units off for acidic soils. We’d calibrated it against lab results but never checked real garden beds. A reader in Portland grew tomatoes in ‘perfect’ pH soil that turned yellow anyway. Omar Tanaka found the discrepancy when he dug up the same plot two years later—his own mistake, from a kit he’d never used himself. The guide was taken down within 48 hours, and we switched to field-kit testing with buffer solutions.
- 2Pruning chart that killed branches
The ‘ideal’ pruning angles in our rose guide were copied from a 1990s extension service manual. They looked neat in diagrams but left stubs that rotted. A subscriber in Michigan sent photos of dead canes labeled ‘followed your chart.’ Omar Tanaka verified it with a local arborist: the angles were too acute for most climates. The chart was replaced with seasonal pruning rules tied to bud placement, not aesthetics.
- 3Seed packet storage advice that failed
We’d advised storing seeds in the fridge for ‘long-term viability,’ but a reader in Arizona reported her basil seeds sprouted *inside* the packet after six months. Omar Tanaka tested it himself: the fridge’s humidity condensed on the seeds, triggering germination. The fix was simple—silica gel packs in airtight containers—but it took a year to update every storage guide. The old advice stayed up for 18 months.
What those three changed
These failures rewrote our process. No more secondhand advice, no more trusting diagrams over real dirt, and no more assuming ‘standard’ conditions apply everywhere.
Rules that came from mistakes
- Test every recommendation in the soil you’ll use—not lab soil. (From the pH kit failure)
- Prune by bud placement, not by what looks ‘clean.’ (From the rose chart mistake)
- Store seeds in a cool, *dry* place, even if it’s ‘common knowledge.’ (From the basil packet)
The people behind this
Omar Tanaka is the founder and editor of *How To Grow Plants*. He’s the one who signed the corrections above—because if you’re going to admit mistakes, you might as well own them.
This site exists because he once killed a potted lemon tree by overwatering it (the roots rotted before he noticed), and now he refuses to let anyone else suffer the same way.
Keeping a log like this is uncomfortable. It means admitting you don’t know everything, even when you’ve spent years digging in the dirt. But the alternative—pretending every piece of advice is perfect—is worse. The best gardeners learn from their failures, and the best sites do too.
One mistake Omar won’t admit to? The time he planted marigolds in a pot *without* drainage holes. They thrived for three weeks before the roots strangled themselves. He still keeps that pot on his windowsill as a reminder: even small, dumb errors happen to everyone.
If you find something here that doesn’t work, don’t just tell us—try fixing it yourself. The contact page is where to start.
There will be a next one
This list isn’t finished. Gardening is a living practice, and so is this site. If you spot a wrong number, a method that doesn’t hold up, or a page that should never have gone out, we want to know. The contact page is where to report it—no email address needed.
The guides are grouped by category: Advice, Aphids, Blooming, Container Gardens, How To and Pests.