My Instagram Top 9, and a post with a lot of comments

The overlap between my Instagram audience and those who regularly read my blog posts is smaller than I'd have thought. Then again, maybe it makes sense, after all I've refused to dip my toes into the TikTok universe. Once you find your digital happy place why venture into another realm?

I still enjoy running the stats on my Instagram Top 9, the nine most "liked" posts of the year. For awhile everyone was doing it, not so much these days. Whatever. Here's what folks liked on my danger garden Instagram page...

#1 a series of 15 images posted on 10/22: "Spikes and spines from my visit to the Deserts of the Americas section of the UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley." 

#2  a series of 19 images posted on 8/8: "Summer 2025 marks 20 years I’ve been gardening here on this 47’ x 111’ piece of land in NE Portland. It seems like a good time to look back at what I started with. The before photos date to May of 2005, home inspection day. Special thanks to my husband @boominghoots for the hardscape vision, shade pavilion design-build and tons of support (financial and labor)."

#3 a series of 10 images posted on 1/11: "A sampling of photos from the second blog post on my August visit to the always stunning Kuzma/Halme garden in SW Portland."

#4 a series of 3 images posted on 12/7: "I went to visit the Santa Clones the other night—it’s a Christmas tradition. They weren’t *exactly* where I thought they’d be, but all I had to do was look up and follow the red glow. Thanks @thesantaclones!"

#5 a standalone image posted on 12/10: "No! This is a bad idea. What happened to giving people real information they could use? Granted this is from a wholesale nursery, but still… knowledge is power people!" (we'll revisit this image below)

#6 a series of 4 images posted on 11/14: "Such a great example of how gorgeous a well-grown cholla can be. I think this is Cylindropuntia whipplei ‘Snow Leopard’ but I don’t know for sure. Isn’t it a great foliage match for the conifer?"

#7 a series of 2 images posted on 11/25: "Another nearby garden I like to keep an eye on. Photos from late October."

#8 a video posted on 8/18: "I love this mossy drippy stacked stone orb in Renee Moog‘s garden, there’s even a carnivorous plant bog surrounding it. The floating hexagonal “web” shapes help deter the raccoons."

#9 a series of 2 images posted on 7/19: "I watched two little girls fiddling with something at the Little Free Greenhouse, this is what they left…"

It's always interesting to see what images people respond to. This year 5 of the 9 posts came from the last 3 months of the year and 2 of them were of images taken here at my home garden. 

The most surprising post was #5, which got 155 comments (wow). I was quite shocked by the immediate and ongoing reaction to the photograph of a plant tag...

I intentionally cropped out the nursery name, as I wanted the discussion to be about the idea, not the nursery. I will add that I took the photo in a vendor's booth at our local wholesale flower market, this was not a retail situation. That Instagram post was shared 53 times and has reached 25,205 accounts. Total views are 40,386 with danger garden followers accounting for only 19.5% percent of those views and non-followers 80.5%. Many of the folks who commented were incensed at the idea a nursery wouldn't provide the most basic information, such as a plant name. Naturally there were a few people who embraced what they saw as the future and didn't see a problem with it, one even adding a condescending "change is scary." 

Another wrote: "There’s nothing wrong with information if you know how to sort fact from internet falsehood. Many do not. Label the plants already. This is just lazy disguised as techno trendy. Don’t get sucked in. Knowledge is power and learning takes time. The knowledge needs to be kept by humans - or we will lose valuable skills fundamental to our survival." What do you think?

(no Bit at the End today, as I don't want to distract from the above image/question) 

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