Changelog

Every meaningful update to this site, in reverse chronological order. Content is maintained — not just published once and abandoned.

Every meaningful update to OutdoorPlantCare.com is logged here. Google ranks freshness, but more importantly: a site that's never updated is a site you can't trust. This page exists so you can see when a guide was last touched and what changed.

2026-06-10 — Phase 11

• Added 300 new long-form articles across cultivars, herbs, fruit trees, lawn, advanced techniques, problem-by-host cross-refs, and how-to-identify guides. Site now has 695+ guides.
• Launched 3 new tools: rain garden sizing calculator (EPA/Wisconsin DNR method), garden light meter (uses phone Ambient Light Sensor API), and garden bed designer (drag-and-drop at scale).
• All article pages now include an author bio block (E-E-A-T signal) and JSON-LD `Person` schema with `sameAs` link to IndoorPlantCare.
• Image `srcset` and `sizes` attributes for responsive serving of Unsplash hero images.
• Skip-to-content link sitewide for screen reader accessibility.
• `/api/subscribe.js` now supports ConvertKit, Beehiiv, Buttondown, and Mailchimp via env vars.
• Added `/blog/feed.xml` RSS feed for the field-notes blog.

2026-06-10 — Phase 10

• Visually audited all PDF cheat sheets. Fixed 10 issues: title duplication, height bug (X\u2013X ft), incorrect zone/sun on 4 plants, broken markdown rendering, URL parameter garbage in descriptions.
• Cheat sheet count expanded from 19 to 40, covering every well-documented plant species in the warehouse.
• Curated structured plant data for the 14 remaining plants missing zones/scientific names.
• Hero image backfill complete: all 395 articles now have hero images via Unsplash hotlink, each with photographer attribution.
• Launched the `/blog/` section with 3 dated field notes.
• Expanded `/about/` with a "By the numbers" section.
• Added `humans.txt`, `security.txt`, and `llms.txt`.
• Built `/glossary/` with 120 gardening terms, alphabetical jump nav, and `DefinedTermSet` schema.
• Added Recipe schema to the compost calculator (`recipeIngredient` and `recipeInstructions`).

2026-06-10 — Phase 9

• Wrote 160 new articles: 25 cultivar deep-dives, 24 monthly task guides, 15 comparison guides, 16 problem-by-host cross-refs, 25 best-plants-for-X lists, 20 regional deep-dives, 20 how-to deep-dives, 15 diagnostic expansions.
• Built `whats-blooming` widget powered by the warehouse.
• Built `problem-photo-gallery` for visual diagnosis matching.
• Added reader Q&A block + `/api/ask` backend to every article. Submits to email via Resend when configured.
• Generated 19 printable PDF cheat sheets for the top plants.
• Added 12 monthly seasonal nurture emails ("This week in the garden") on top of the 30-day onboarding series.
• Built the canonical plants-db.json warehouse (53 plants with scientific names, 73 with USDA zones, 39 with deer ratings).
• Refactored every interactive tool to load from the warehouse via `window.__opcMatchPlant()`.

2026-06-09 — Phase 8

• 65 new articles: 30 deep topics (tree care, soil prep, propagation, irrigation), 15 buyer guides for missing product categories, 20 state-specific articles.
• Built 4 more interactive tools: lawn area calculator, soil amendment calculator, harvest calendar, leaf ID key.
• Added the remaining 18 states to the crop-state matrix \u2014 500 pages total (50 states \u00d7 10 crops).
• Generated image-sitemap.xml for Google Image indexing.
• Backfilled 93 missing hero images via second-pass Unsplash search.
• Wired HowTo schema to all tool pages.

Earlier phases

The site launched 2026-06-10 with 235 long-form guides, 19 interactive tools, 50 state planting calendars, 33 buyer guides, a 30-day onboarding email sequence, and the editorial standards still in force today: cited Extension sources, first-person voice only where firsthand, zero AI-generated filler.

How updates work

• Substantive content updates trigger a new `updated:` date in the frontmatter and a new entry here.
• Typo fixes and link cleanups happen silently.
• New articles are listed in the relevant hub page on launch day; this page is the consolidated record.