(btw, happy to discuss the Forum-related stuff at Forum Feedback if you want)
As I mentioned in the feature request, I’d be OK with a pop-up like this for new users (“new” to be defined by some metric), but at some point it should not have to be there.
I’m sure this might be part of it, but my guess is that most people aren’t aware that iNat is supposed to be used to observe wild organisms, and perhaps aren’t aware there’s really a difference between a garden plant or a wild plant.