TBH you sound like a nag. And beleive me I am one too.
My Mum pointed out that I was on eldest DS's case all the time, he's 9, do this do that, hurry up blah blah blah. And I thought fuck I am! I decided not to say a word to him all weekend, just nice stuff, no questions about school, homework etc asked him once to get ready and then left him to it, took ages but he got there. It defused the tension massively, I stopped and he listened more, sounds implausible but true.
And yes you do have to listen to what we would not choose to listen too, I had a blow by blow account of all Man U's goals about three times in 25mins, boring to me but important to him. And the strawberry plant thing is a really clever sweet thing to think and say; not drivel, sounds intelligent to me, what do you want him to talk about?, the situation in Syria, the legalities of Twitter and injunctions? Instead say lets see shall we? lets go to the garden centre and get some strawberry plants and leave a torch on them and night and see if they grow; will get them off their arse!
You need to be more positive and less nag orientated, hard I know, I get it, I feel totally peed off when he wants just to play on his DS and talk about star wars. But sometime you have to leave them to it and leave them alone. And do fun stuff, stick on loud music and have a disco! Ignore the complaining, I sing, don't rise to the whinging, lock them outside and tell them to find you some nature for some sweets, make it fun and turn off the nag factor.