Ngl that's a pretty hilarious image. I read somewhere that rosemary is super tough and can survive being "transplanted" by accident like that. My neighbor's mint once escaped its pot and started growing through the cracks in their deck boards. Plants are wild when they decide to go rogue. At least yours didn't end up taking root in your neighbor's balcony soil or something crazy like that.

Didn't I read somewhere that pros still argue about this one?

Yeah but have you actually stayed there or just guessing?

Oh wow, that's such a great discovery! I had a similar thing happen with an old backpack frame where I found replacement buckles for like a dollar. So what specifically is the part that broke on your poles? Is it one of those little shock cord ends or a connector piece? I'm always curious about which parts actually fail first on those things.

Is it possible the reason wet burlap works so well has nothing to do with keeping the concrete wet and everything to do with controlling the temperature? I've read that a slower, more even cure happens when you stop the surface from losing heat too fast, and burlap plus plastic acts like a blanket. The water's just part of the equation, the real magic is the steady temp inside that wrap. On hot days, the difference in surface temp between a hose job and a covered slab is huge. That might be why you saw way less cracking, not just the moisture.