Got banned from the local gardening club forum for talking about native plants

I mentioned that planting non-native butterfly bushes was hurting local pollinators more than helping, and the mod said I was 'disrupting the peace.' I backed it up with a study from Iowa State from 2021, but they still booted me. Has anyone else been banned for pushing native species over pretty flowers?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy_foster5622d ago

Maybe the mods were getting kickbacks from the big box stores selling those butterfly bushes.

johnthompson21d ago

Yeah, I had almost the exact same thing happen on my local gardening page. I posted about how butterfly bushes are basically invasive in our zone and recommended swapping them for some native milkweed and goldenrod. The admin deleted my post and gave me a warning about "being confrontational." I sent them the same Cornell study you probably saw, plus a link to my state's native plant society page, and they just doubled down. Ended up starting my own group called "[Town Name] Native Gardeners" and we have 300 members now. Sometimes the old mods are too attached to their pretty non-native plants to hear facts, so you're better off finding people who actually care about the ecosystem.

miles27721d ago

Ask @amy_foster56 if she's serious about the kickback thing. Because honestly, that thought crossed my mind too. The butterfly bush addiction runs deep with some of these older gardening groups. They've been sold this "easy, pretty, attracts butterflies" marketing for decades. Too proud to admit they were wrong. Did you ever try talking to the mod directly, one on one? I did that once for a different forum and the guy basically admitted he just didn't want the drama. Easier to ban the person with facts than to change the whole group's mindset.