Does Flora(l) abuse exist?

Feeding starving African kids is more important than plant sufferage.

I guess I can take that as a no?

I don’t know for certain whether or not plants suffer pain, but I would assume they don’t, and that assumption keeps me from cringing when I accidentally murder another plant. I have a black thumb.

This is a good question, and although I’m not sure of the answer, assuming they did feel pain, it’s one of these situations where humans in general have more to worry about. We have to worry about humans and a lot of other animals that we’re already aware can feel pain.

I have a maple tree that I planted from seed and I braided it’s branches as it grew. It’s grown now and….didn’t really turn out so good. I don’t think it hurt it though.

I don’t think it hurts them at all, I have a orange tree that is grafted to another plant so it can grow indoors and I can have the plant in the North East and not worrry it will freeze to death.

I also have a mini banana tree here as well which is more than happy to grow indoors and it was bred to grow small enough to be able to be an indoor plant

I hate seeing the Amazon rain forest being chopped down not because the trees have a soul but because I have one.

What about the pain plants can inflict on US? Huh? Huh?? When I was a little kid in Florida we had a pepper plant growing next to our pourch. I was playing like I was eating them. I didn’t actually eat them, I didn’t even pull them off of the bush, but I was handling parts of the bush and the next thing I remember is me screaming bloody murder, my face and hands all burning red and rashy and HOT and it STUNG like a banshee! Stupid, heartless plant. I wasn’t even doing anything.

I am ambivalent about bonsai. I love those mini trees but it does smack of cruelty to mold them so harshly.

Yes, I do think that plant abuse exists.

I believe plants do have consciousness of the type they have, and there evidence that they at least respond to stress in ways that conventional Western thinking tends to ignore.

However even if I thought plants had no consciousness, no soul, and were basically just organic machines, people do have emotional relationships with plants, and plants affect people in many ways, ecological and directly mechanical as well as emotional, psychological, spiritual, and aesthetic, which are very important and in many cases not very easy to replace.

If I were dictator, I’d have draconian laws against major plant abuses such as chopping down large wonderful trees without a very very good reason.

Pruning can actually help the health of a tree. However it does have physiological effects on a plant when you injure it, of course, and plants have shown severe reactions to the way they are treated, even when people start thinking about doing them harm.

Read The Secret Life of Plants.

This probably seems weird but I get attached to my plants. I feel guilty if I accidently kill one. I feel like I should appologize for being a crappy care taker. I think not so much to the plant but to nature, who created something so pretty, only to have me send it to the gallows.
I also hated cutting down some trees around my old home. Trees that where older than me and other wise healthy. But we were worried that a storm may knock some of them onto our home and maybe kill someone some day.
I felt not so bad though after I found out the largest one was rotted in the core and would eventually be blown down. The guy who cut my trees said he was surprised it didn’t fall on its own. The core and the roots where rotted. It still felt bad to see these magestic giants fall heavily on the ground.

I’m guessing some degenerates sit on cactus, they like a prick up their arse see.