One weird thing I’ve noticed about plantblr vs plant subreddits like r/succulents, r/cactus, etc. is that plant tumblr often gets angry or defensive when you give them polite care advice if you spot something with their care that may cause their plants issues. Well, at least that’s happened most of the few times I’ve tried to help someone out.
Meanwile on plant reddit I very frequently give care advice, correct misidentification, etc. and 9/10 times the person is grateful and thanks me even on posts where they weren’t specifically asking for any advice.
With the general atmosphere on tumblr vs reddit I would have expected it to be completely the other way around.
Hey, plantblr folks, try to recognize that if someone critiques your care it’s because they care about plants and want to see them thrive! It’s not to be condescending. Unless they’re giving the corrections overtly rudely or it’s total misinformation, try to be polite.
It can definitely be tricky, admittedly I haven’t done plantblr advice input things in a long time so I can’t entirely vouche on the current climate of it,
My best guess is that at least some of the time, they aren’t always open to advice because they’re not always asking for it when posting on this site, which can lead to the defensiveness quicker cause they didn’t expect themselves (or the people they learned the misinfo from) to be told that they are wrong. Its not unlike how aggressively defensive people can be told that putting Betta fish in an unheated fishbowl is the wrong way to care for them. It also doesn’t help that sometimes we hobbyists have a bad habit of getting plants/seeds that we are absolutely not prepared for nor have the right space for, which leads to defensiveness out of understandable embarrassment/frustration.
For some I find the best lesson for some plant newbies is to let them learn on their own and make their own mistakes some of the time to let them connect the dots themselves. I had one of my own friends that insisted that the Mediterranean plants/herbs she had would be totally fine in a shallow planter with no drainage provided the container they were growing in had gravel in the bottom (which is a very old gray-area misinfo from god knows how long in horticulture) despite me saying best I could that it was not beneficial for the plants; it wasn’t until the plants started to sulk and grow more sickly did she realize that I was correct on that input and moved them to a planter with drainage holes.
This being said though I do agree that aggressive responses to critiques are not really the best answer. Understandable if being spammed by this advice over and over, but still, not the answer.
Those of you getting critiques; just sit back, take a breather, do some research on what you’ve been critiqued on and see if the critiquer may be right or not, and come back later with a cooler head with a response.
Kihaku-Gato's Garden Blog (tumblr import) 