Please correct me if I am wrong. When you go to freeze your garden, it says that the feature should not be used for short term freezing (for example-freezing overnight). Yet, so many gardens are being frozen overnight. Or for an hour or two at a time. I am just wondering if the rule has changed because sometimes, it is really hard to water gardens. Especially if you live in a different country because of the time difference. Thank you for your time:)

I think it’s more a suggestion than a rule.

There is no rule, it's just a suggestion.  The developer prefers players to actively play, which is presumably why the game recommends not freezing in the short term, but  you can freeze your garden as often as you like, for as long or short a period as you like.

Freezing often can mean that people are put off from visiting your garden even when you reopen, so it might be worth not freezing every night if you can help it.

Thank you for your replies. I guess I was confused by the wording. It states "this feature should not be used for short periods of time".

That's how the game developer envisages it.  But there is no mechanism to stop you freezing, so you can choose what works best for you and your garden.

It is a suggestion, not a rule.

On the subject of freezing, I’ve often wondered if freezing resets the plates ? It’s my understanding that the next critter on a plate is set as the last one is spotted ? I’m thinking that freezing throws the plate out a little ?
Has ever there been any testing done, I have absolutely no idea how it could be tested 🤷🏻‍♀️
I’m just curious to hear other Fairies ideas ?

No, freezing doesn't reset the plates.  If something was programmed onto the plate before you froze, it still comes when you unfreeze.   Freezing doesn't affect later visits, either.

I don't think things are programmed to the plate right when the last thing is spotted. For instance, if a hedgehog is spotted, and then within the next hour the garden owner pulls the attracting plant for the hedgehog and plants for the flamingo, the hedgehog won't show up on the next plate.

But sometimes if you pull plants within ten or fifteen minutes (approximately) of the next critter coming, it may be the critter that was attracted to the plants you pulled, because it was already programmed in. But I don't think the programming happens until quite a while after the previous critter was spotted.

I like to play the game the way the developer envisaged it, BUT there are times when staying open overnight is a terrible waste of resources and can set you way back in your plans for your setup. For instance, if a plant is going to go RFH just after I go to bed, so that the whole night will just get mice and mallards to a precious plate of superfood, while the supershroom ages another 9 hours, that's just a big waste. I will freeze if that is the case.

Well, the developer recommends that you don't dump plates before they are empty, or remove plants before they are RTH too.  I see this as pretty much the same thiing: it's how he expects people to play, but sometimes it works better to do something differently.  And as the mechanism doesn't limit the amount of times we can freeze, or that we can freeze for (like the private option, which also isn't how the developer prefers people to play) then I don't see it as an issue to freeze whenever someone wants to.

I freeze as you do, Kelly, if I think it's a waste of resources not to.  But I do think it can be a problem sometimes if someone freezes overnight every night, or every time they aren't around to play.  Players who may have added the garden to favourites or kept it open to stalk may not bother going back if they regularly find that garden frozen during the time that they can play.  But it isn't "wrong" to freeze whenever you want.