I had a similar thing happen. I was growing an edible seed, so I had a bunch of flowers in pots taking up most of my small driveway. My neighbor decided to do me the “favor” of picking them all when they looked dead to him, but before the seed had fully set. I explained all of the different reasons why I had chosen certain plants and their life cycles (read: coerced him into a long tour about things he had no interest in just to prove the point that he didn’t know what he was doing when he messed with them). Was it best and most mature way to handle it, not at all. Did it work, yep.

Long story even longer, most people are just don’t see the real world (as Robin Wall Kimmerer likes to call the natural world).