About Open Grow Guide
Open Grow Guide is an independent plant encyclopedia. It brings care, hardiness, pet safety and problem-solving into one consistent reference, built from primary botanical records and university research, with the source for every fact on the page.
Four things, done properly
One structure for every plant, so the answer is always in the same place. The most widely grown houseplants and garden plants come first, and an entry is published only once it has enough sourced facts to be worth reading.
Plant records
Accepted botanical names, family and native range from Kew's World Checklist of Vascular Plants and USDA PLANTS; hardiness from the USDA zone map and 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 a source names it and the symptoms to watch for, cited to ASPCA, Pet Poison Helpline or an extension service, or recorded as not documented.
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
AI helps draft and structure the prose. It is never the source of a fact. Every entry 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's World Checklist of Vascular Plants 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, ASPCA and Pet Poison Helpline. Code confirms each cited page still exists and still says what the fact claims.
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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
Every sentence is checked against the facts it rests on, and anything they don't support is rewritten or removed. A fact whose source can't be checked automatically waits for a person rather than being published.
Full detail, including our corrections process and the "unknown" rule for unsourced toxicity, is in the editorial policy.
Independent by design
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 make the encyclopedia better. If a figure conflicts with a source you trust, send it with the citation and we will fix it or remove it.
Email contact@opengrowguide.com