I have some friends who are serious gardeners and they simply WILL NOT tolerate any plants in their gardens that they don’t approve of…

This is very serious stuff, people!

So you can understand why the woman who wrote this story isn’t playing around when it comes to her garden…because that thing is her baby!

She explained why rejecting a plant for her garden caused some conflict in the story below.

Read on and see what she had to say.

AITA for putting my foot down about a plant gifted to my partner not being planted in our backyard garden?

“My partner and I are in the process of doing a full renovation of our back yard.

We have made a lot of compromises about the direction we are doing to ensure we both get some of what we want.

My part of the bargain is that the small garden space we do have will be dedicated to entirely native plants that help support the local ecosystem.

Makes sense, right?

I am somebody who is very passionate about native gardening. In my area we have a nitrogen pollution crisis and population declines of birds and pollinators in the region.

I have completely planned out a garden we will be planting in the fall of native plants that will thrive in the soil we have without any amendments or fertilizers, all of which support pollinators and birds throughout the year, won’t require any watering beyond rainfall once established in the ground, and will look beautiful.

They had a deal…

I compromised a lot on how big the gardens would be among other things on the guarantee that we would maintain a fully native garden. My partner and I even had discussions about how gifted plants would not be an exception to this.

Fast forward to my partner’s birthday, his parents gifted him cash, but his mom is the type who wants to always include a small physical gift, and this time she chose to gift him with an ornamental grass to plant in the garden we are building.

Uh oh…here we go…

Not only is the plant not one of the plants that’s been selected for the garden, it’s not native, it would require us to amend the soil we have to support it, it does nothing to support local wildlife, and its sun requirements would stipulate rearranging the whole garden plan in order to accommodate it.

It’s a small plant that only cost a few bucks.

I have previously had multiple conversations with MIL about the gardens we are planning, why it’s important to me to have a native garden etc.

Well, when she gifted the plant, I researched what we would need to do to keep this as a house plant, what window it had to go in, and checked to make sure it was non-toxic to my cat.

I set it up for success in our south facing window, and even my cat loves it.

Some people can never be pleased…

Well she has now protested this, stating that it’s meant to be an outside plant so it should go in the garden we are putting together.

I explained how it doesn’t fit the criteria for our gardens we had discussed, so it wouldn’t be going there but we were happy to keep it as a houseplant where it could still thrive.

My partner is on my side about this, as we did have multiple conversations and agreements about this, and he recognizes the compromises I’ve made to make sure he has all the concrete patio and lawn space he wants, so he wants to hold up his end of the deal.

But it clearly has hurt his mom’s feelings as she was really hoping to have a plant she gifted him put into the garden, which makes me feel like a jerk.”

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man whose celebratory post-grad school vacation is being ruined by his family’s insistence he’s being lazy.

Let’s see what readers had to say about this.

This person said they’re NTA.

Another individual agreed.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

And another individual spoke up.

In my humble opinion, it seems like her mother-in-law needs to chill out, back off, and not make a big deal out of this.

It’s only a plant, right?

And it’s not like they threw the thing in a dumpster.

Get over it!

All this fuss over a plant…jeez…

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