About Open Grow Guide
Plant care advice online is often copied, contradictory and unsourced. Open Grow Guide is being built to do the opposite: one guide per plant, built from primary botanical records and university extension research, with the source for every figure on the page.
Four things, done properly
The site is deliberately narrow. We would rather publish fewer guides that meet a standard than many that don't. Plant guides are being published in stages, starting with the most-grown houseplants and garden plants.
Plant records
Accepted botanical names, family and native range from Kew POWO and USDA PLANTS; hardiness from university extension sources.
Care guidance
Light, water, soil, humidity, feeding and pruning, written as ranges and simple tests rather than fixed schedules, because rooms and climates differ.
Toxicity for cats and dogs
Risk for each animal, the compound involved where known and the symptoms to watch for, cited to ASPCA or an extension service, or marked unknown.
Problems and propagation
Symptom-first troubleshooting for the problems people actually run into, plus propagation methods with realistic timing.
Facts first, drafting second, checks last
We use AI to draft and structure prose. We do not use it as a source of facts. Every guide goes through the same four steps before it publishes.
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STEP 01
Pull the record
Taxonomy and native range come from Kew POWO and USDA PLANTS, not from other content sites.
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STEP 02
Gather and check sources
Care and toxicity facts are collected from extension services and ASPCA. Automated checks confirm each cited page exists and supports the fact.
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STEP 03
AI-assisted drafting
Language models turn the checked facts into readable prose. They are never the source of a fact.
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STEP 04
Claim checks and review
Every sentence is checked automatically against the facts. A person spot-checks samples and reviews every case where sources disagree about toxicity.
Full detail, including our corrections process and the "unknown" rule for unsourced toxicity, is in the editorial policy.
An independent publisher
Open Grow Guide is an independent publisher. It is not owned by a retailer, a nursery or a plant brand, and no company pays for placement on the site.
Open Grow Guide may join affiliate programs run by nurseries, seed companies and garden retailers. Those links will never change which plants we cover, what care advice we give, or what we report about toxicity. There are no ads on this site. See the affiliate disclosure.
Talk to us
Corrections are the most useful email we get. If a figure on the site conflicts with a source you trust, tell us and cite it. We will fix it or remove it.
Email contact@opengrowguide.com