That botany lover meetup at the community garden felt off

I went to the monthly thing over at the Jenkins Road community garden last Saturday and something bugged me. There was this guy who kept touching the plants without asking anyone first. He even plucked a leaf off someone's rare fern and just held it for like five minutes. I get that people get excited about specimens, but it felt more like he was treating the place as his own personal collection. A few other folks looked uncomfortable too but nobody said anything. Is it just me or do these meetups need some basic rules about handling other people's plants? Has anyone else run into this kind of thing at a botany gathering?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jason14d ago

I was at that same meetup and saw him handling the fern like it was his. Someone should have told him to ask first, that's just basic garden manners.

tyler_bell14d ago

Man, that's exactly why I started bringing my own clippers to plant swaps. @the_jason you're totally right, it's basic respect. I learned the hard way after someone called me out for touching a rare cutting without asking. Now I just ask "hey, mind if I snip one?" and 9 times out of 10 they're cool with it. Makes things way less awkward.