Editorial Standards

Etheric Echoes is written by a small editorial team, not by a named individual. This page explains how the work is done so you can judge it on its method rather than on a byline.

Why there is no author name

We would rather publish a process you can check than a name that does no work. A byline implies a person who planted, measured and verified everything themselves. That is not how this site is made, so we do not claim it.

What we do claim is stated below, and it is verifiable. Where a claim has a source, we link the source.

Where our facts come from

Plant, soil and garden guidance is sourced to university cooperative extension services and plant authorities wherever one exists. In practice this means Oregon State University Extension, Clemson HGIC, University of Minnesota Extension, Penn State Extension, Iowa State Extension, NC State Extension, the Missouri Botanical Garden plant finder, and Proven Winners. These are the same sources a master gardener would reach for.

Safety, health and wildlife claims are sourced to the agency that owns the question rather than to other blogs. Examples: the CDC for mosquito and standing-water guidance, the EPA for mold, the American College of Veterinary Pharmacists for product toxicity, Cornell Lab of Ornithology for bird behaviour, and the ASPCA for plant toxicity to pets.

Numbers and studies are cited to the primary document. Where we quote a finding, you can open the paper or the bulletin and read it yourself.

Botanical names are checked against the current accepted name, including recent reclassifications, rather than copied from an older article.

What we leave out

If we cannot verify a number, it does not go in the article. We will either omit it, give a range and say it is a range, or say plainly that it comes from our own experience rather than from a source we checked. When a widely repeated claim turns out not to be supported, we say so and cite what is actually documented instead of repeating it.

This is why some articles contain fewer specifics than a competing page. We would rather be short than wrong.

Products and affiliate links

When we recommend something to buy, we link that specific product, and we tell you what it is for and who it is wrong for.

Product details such as rating, review count and availability are recorded on the date we check them, and we print that date next to the claim because these things change. A rating is not a permanent fact.

We are a participant in affiliate programmes, which means we may earn a commission when you buy through a link. This never decides what we recommend. We do not accept payment for placement or for a favourable mention, and a product we would not use does not appear here because it pays better.

Our images

Photographs on this site are original images created for each article. They are not stock photography and they are not retrieved listing photos of products.

Every generated image retains its original provenance signature in the delivered file, which records that the image was created with an AI image model. We do not strip that signature, and we do not inject fake camera metadata into it.

Where an image depicts a specific product rather than an idea or a scene, it needs a real reference photo of that product, and we say so in the caption.

Illustrative scenes are captioned as scenes. An image showing a suggested arrangement is a concept, not a photograph of the writer’s own garden.

Garden notes and zones

Field observations on this site come from a Zone 6b garden and say so. Zones, timing windows and frost dates are stated because they change what you should actually do, and we point at your local extension office when the answer depends on where you are.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, tell us at support@ethericechoes.com and we will fix it. Substantive corrections change the article and update its modified date rather than being quietly edited away. If a correction changes the advice, we say what changed.

Who decides what gets published

Topics are chosen from what readers actually search for and ask about, filtered by whether we can answer the question properly with sources we can stand behind. A topic we cannot source well does not get written, no matter how much traffic it might bring.

Contact

Email support@ethericechoes.com . We read it.