It's hilarious how literally you take garden instructions/directives when you first start out in gardening. I remember someone telling me that daphne cuttings should be taken on Christmas Day, and each year the day would come and go, way too busy and distracting to think about daphne cuttings, and I'd think 'Oh well. Missed my chance. I'll try again next year'.

I also remember taking cuttings of azaleas (I was SO excited about azaleas, back then..), and the instructions in my one garden book said to put the cuttings into 'warmed' soil. So I spread the potting mix out thin on plastic, and covered it with another layer black plastic until it was nice and warm, then potted up the cuttings into it. It didn't occur to me that the soil should stay 'warm', on some kind of heated unit that might keep the soil in the low 20's or so in order to facilitate rooting. The instructions only said that they had to go in to warm soil, and so they did. In fact it was probably nearer hot, though immediately plummeting to ambient temperature. How could I have known otherwise?

What are you prepared to confess to doing as a beginner gardener, in response to inadequate, or too literal interpretation of, instruction?

(btw, finding a relevant pic was a struggle. Above is a kurume azalea, saved from itself by providing back up to Paeonia emodi)