Fulings hate flowers, the wee bassas

I did place my gardening area on a smallish plains biome island close to a black forest biome, IMO best solution. Its rare a mob comes over to wrack havoc on my plants.

They do. You lose the whole plant if it happens.

Not sure about the saplings, but they hate food crops.

They do , thats why you most have your crops walled

During the smell from swamps i lost all my carrots and turnips, because i have had no moat around :-( About saplings don't know exactly.

saplings are safe (unless an aoe hits them)
seedplants are semi safe - fully grown seedplants may be get destroyed if there is no other valuable target and the plant is in the way

growing and fully grown carrots(turnips, onions and stuff) might get attacked if no other valuable target is near

better have a garden with walls