This is a good article on the mechanics, of how to get into the Garden, but I think it's missing a couple of really important points for newbies in terms of the overall picture.

1. You should only compound when you have enough seeds for a whole number of plants. If you compound mid-way through a full plant (less than 2592000 seeds), for example, you will have wasted all of those seeds, because fractional compounding isn't allowed or possible in the Drip Garden.

2. If you claim, you can claim at any time, as you have fractional LPs. Claiming should be done only when the plant decay rate is less than 3%.

3. This part I'm not even 100% clear on, but plants are really only an indicator of your position in the Garden. Their price is always the "same", in that each plant costs 2592000 seeds. But what you're selling from the Garden is the LP tokens, and the number of LP tokens you get from the current number of plants produced varies based on your behavior within the Garden, i.e. whether or not you compound or harvest more.