Bike Racks vs Gardening

As much as I enjoy biking; as much as I enjoy encouraging others to bike; still I appreciate getting a bit of encouragement back. A "Way-to-go, thanks for taking the effort," now & then. Most of the time I take this encouragement in the form of convenient places to park. When I visit a place that has a nice bike rack in a great location, it makes me feel like this place is looking out for me, and is happy I'm there. That sort of encouragement helps me keep going.
So what message am I supposed to take from this?

The only bike back at Rite-Aid on Northwest, completely surrounded 

But hey, at least it's not as bad as it was the day before. I didn't have my camera with me, but I saw as I cycled by that the entire rack was filled with potted. Exactly zero bikes had room to park. Message: potted plants are more important than cyclists to this establishment.

Or how about this nice bike rack at a local grocery store?

Uhh -- bike rack? Are you there?

Oh, there you are...

For much of the year the Community Food Co-op on Forest has their best bike racks right there. They're easy to access, easy to use with u-locks, covered, and of all their racks this is the one closest to the front door.
But come gardening season they remove the racks and replace them with bags of potting soil, compost, and manure. It would be tempting to say that the message is that bikes rate lower than dirt, but I know it's not the case. They do have other racks, even if those aren't as good as the ones they put out and take away on a seasonal basis.

So please tell me -- am I being unreasonable to think that bike racks, especially the only or the best rack at a business, should remain unobstructed (and physically present) ALL the time, not just sometimes? And what message does it send you to find a business that does otherwise?