Our methodology
How Planting Bloom compiles, structures, and checks its plant care — and the honest limits of what a reference site can tell you.
How the care guides are made
Every species guide is assembled from published horticultural references and university extension services, then written to be specific to the plant — real light and water ranges, soil and humidity needs, propagation that actually works, and the problems that species really gets. We compile and organize; we do not diagnose your individual plant. Pet-toxicity flags follow the ASPCA Animal Poison Control toxic-plant list. Growing dates are typical for a USDA hardiness zone and should always be confirmed against your local forecast and extension office.
How the Plant Doctor works
The Plant Doctor is a set of hand-built decision trees: you pick your plant and the symptom you see, answer a couple of narrowing questions, and land on the most likely cause with a specific fix. Each endpoint is its own page, built from the same care references as the guides. It reflects the most common causes of a symptom — not a substitute for hands-on inspection when a plant is seriously failing.
Our data posts
Some articles are built directly from our own care database — a toxicity table across every plant we catalog, a difficulty ranking computed from care demands, seasonal watering comparisons. Each data post carries a visible note on what its numbers are computed from and when they were last refreshed, and every figure is cross-checked against the database before publishing.
Freshness
Guides and data posts carry a "reviewed" date. We re-verify content on that cadence rather than only changing the date — data posts are re-computed from the current database, and care guidance is checked against current extension guidance.
Where we stop — please see a professional
This site is a reference, offered in good faith, and nothing here is a safety, edibility, or medical claim. Some limits we hold to:
- Never eat a plant based on this site. Foraging and edibility are outside our scope.
- Suspected pet poisoning is an emergency. Call your veterinarian or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center (888-426-4435) right away — do not wait on a web page.
- Serious disease or infestation — anything spreading fast, or affecting edible crops or valuable trees — is worth a diagnosis from your local university extension service, which knows your regional pests and pathogens.
Our sources
- USDA PLANTS database and USDA Plant Hardiness Zone data
- ASPCA Animal Poison Control toxic-plant list
- University agricultural extension services (planting dates, pest & disease guidance)
- The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Xerces Society (native plants & pollinators)
- Published horticultural references for species-specific care
Questions about how we source or check something? Email us.