The things we got wrong
This is not a list of what we got right. It is a list of what we got wrong—what we published, what we missed, what we fixed, and who noticed.
A gardening site does not live in the words alone; it lives in the soil, the seasons, and the quiet moments when a method fails.
A log of corrections is the only page on a site that can’t be faked. If we claim to care about real growing, we have to show where we failed at it. This is how you judge whether the rest of the work is worth trusting.
Three we had to fix
Every gardening site starts with good intentions. Some of ours were wrong.
The wrong planting depth for marigolds
- 1Marigolds died in the first frost
We published a guide to companion planting that said marigolds should be sown ¼ inch deep. They were planted that way in three test gardens—all of them failed by October. The roots rotted before they could establish. Delia Delgado noticed when the last of the seedlings turned black in her own backyard.
- 2The seed packet lied to us
We assumed the depth recommendation on the packet was correct. It wasn’t. The supplier’s own trials showed ⅛ inch was the safe zone for germination in clay soil. The mistake stood for six weeks before a reader in Michigan emailed us a photo of their wilting marigolds—with the depth note circled in red.
- 3We rewrote the entire section
The fix was simple: dig up the correct depth from the supplier’s data sheet and add a note about soil type. The updated guide went live with a correction notice. Delia Delgado tested it herself the next spring, this time with seedlings that survived the first frost.
What those three changed
These weren’t just fixes—they were proof that we were paying attention. The marigold mistake taught us that even small errors can kill a plant before it grows. The seed packet lesson showed that assumptions are the real enemy in gardening.
Rules that came from mistakes
- Always verify supplier recommendations against real-world trials (marigold depth).
- Test corrections in your own garden before publishing (seedling survival).
- A correction notice is not optional—readers deserve to know what failed (frost resistance).
The people behind this
Delia Delgado is the founder and editor of Plant Wild. She’s the one who dug up the marigold roots to see why they rotted, who rewrote the planting guide, and who still tests every correction in her own backyard.
This is how you know the mistakes are real: they happened to her first.
Keeping a log like this is uncomfortable. It means admitting that even the people who write about growing things sometimes get it wrong. But that’s the point—gardening is about learning, not perfection. The best lessons come from the failures you don’t hide.
There was a time Delia Delgado killed an entire basil plant by overwatering it because she thought ‘more moisture’ meant ‘drown it.’ It took three tries before she finally got the balance right.
That’s the kind of mistake you don’t put in a log—because it’s too small, too personal, too much about the learning process itself.
If you find something wrong here, don’t just point it out. Try fixing it yourself first. Then tell us what worked—and what didn’t.
There will be a next one
This list isn’t finished. Gardening is a process of trial and error, and so is this site. If you spot something—whether it’s a wrong measurement, a method that doesn’t work, or a page that should never have gone live—let us know. The contact page is the place to start.
The guides are grouped by category: Advice, Companion Plants, Flowers, How To, Planting and Plants.