10 Best Gardening Forums In 2023

Are you passionate about plants and looking for a list of the best gardening forums to join? Look no further, because below you can find a list of gardening-related forums and communities that are still active in 2024.

Forums have been for years a place where I would spend most of my free time researching for topics that interested me and helping other members to find what they were looking for.

Sadly, these types of online communities have seen a very big drop in demand in recent years because of the rise in popularity of Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and other social networks. That is not only the case of the gardening forums, but all forums have noticed a big drop in their traffic over the past years.

Instead of accessing forums, most people now prefer to find the answer to their question in Facebook groups, Reddit, or on Quora. Yet, there are still some folks like me who like to waste their time on good-old forums.

I don’t know about you, but I simply don’t like Facebook groups. The new questions are always displayed at the top, the older topics are getting forgotten and lost, and so on. Even though these communities have a search function, many times, I cannot find the answer to a particular question without asking again. Hence, I often go back to forums.

Unfortunately, the number of gardening forums that are still available in 2024 has become quite limited. Most of them simply either don’t have enough active members anymore or are filled with spam content posted by bots.

There are still a number of gardening-related forums that have passed the test of time, but these are sometimes a bit of hard to find. That’s why I’ve decided to make a list of the gardening forums that still have active members and have managed to survive the era of social networks.

The order in which I posted them depends on how active these communities are and how much I like them.

I also tried to display a few information about every website, such as:

Domain registration date: this is the date when the domain was registered but doesn’t necessarily mean that the website has started adding content that year.

Alexa rank: this should help you to make an opinion on how popular that forum is globally. The lower this number is, the more traffic it receives.

The number of registered members: this is the number of people currently registered on a forum. Note that these numbers are accurate when I write this post but will increase over time.

1. DavesGarden.com

Dave’s Garden is one of the largest, oldest, and still one of my favorite gardening forums.

This website has a large database of registered users from all over the world and has managed to withstand the time.

Dave’s Garden is more than a simple forum, is a community that has various guides and is like a small Wikipedia of gardening, landscaping, and other related topics.

The amount of data and the layout of the website might be a bit overwhelming for new users, but once you get more familiar with it, I’m sure you’ll love Dave’s Garden.

2. GardenWeb.com

Garden Web is another old forum and community focused on homes and gardens.

The domain name and its content were acquired several years ago by Houzz, another community with a user base with similar interests like the individuals already active on Garden Web.

Ever since Garden Web has received a new look, and the website has been redesigned to integrate better with the ideals of the parent company.

It currently has a modern and clean look, and there are many active users and new topics every day.

I wasn’t able to find a page with the number of registered members, but judging on the domain’s age and the number of current active posts (1,877,658), there are probably hundreds of thousands of users.

3. PerMies.com

PerMies is a community of like-minded people focused mostly on topics related to permaculture and homesteading.

According to the information displayed on their advertising page, there are currently over 332,000 registered users, and the website receives millions of page views per month.

The user are highly engaged and there are many quality guides, with pictures, and well detailed. Once you start reading the content, this community can become pretty addictive.

4. HelpfulGardener.com

Helpful Gardener is another great choice if you are someone who likes to spend his or her free time on forums.

While this community has been founded back in 2004, is not as popular as some of the forums mentioned earlier. However, there are enough active members and the overall quality of the posts seems to be good.

Helpful Gardener has the classic look and feel of a forum. Hence, it’s easy to browse the website and find the sections you are looking for without too much effort.

The most active section of the website is the “Vegetable Gardening Forum,” with over 94074 posts. Therefore, if your main interest is in learning how to grow your own vegetables with the possibility to interact with other like-minded people, Helpful Gardener might be an excellent choice for a community.

5. Garden.org

Garden.org is a library of guides, plant database, and various tools to help you become a better gardener.

The National Gardening Association operates this website, and judging by its Alexa rank, it looks like it’s receiving a fair amount of traffic every month.

Whether you are someone who has no previous gardening experience or someone with years of activity, you’ll find information to fulfill your hunger for knowledge on Garden.org. The members are very friendly and supportive, regardless if you are just getting started or you are a veteran in gardening.

6. Forums.Botanicalgarden.Ubc.Ca

According to the information displayed on the “about us” page, these forums are coordinated and hosted by the University of British Columbia, Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, which is established in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

This community aims to be an online discussion place for science-based gardening, plant growers, and biodiversity supporters throughout the world.

Even though UBC hosts the forums, the registration is free to everyone, no matter the knowledge level about plants and experience.

7. Gardenerscorner.Co.Uk

Gardeners Corner is a gardening forum which has been online for several years. Even though it doesn’t have a vast user base, it’s pretty popular in the UK.

There is a decent number of registered members and a good number of active topics and replies.

You can ask all kinds of questions related to gardening, flowers, houseplants, plant identification, and anything associated.

The website is easy to navigate, has a function for finding the most recent posts, and the design looks nice and clean.

Overall, it looks like a nice place where you can spend your free online time while gaining new information and socializing with other fellow gardeners.

8. Gardening-Forums.com

Gardening Forums is a smaller community about gardening, lawns, plant care, and any related activities.

The website looks very clean, is optimized for mobiles, and loads fast.

Even though there are not many registered members compared to other communities mentioned above, there is enough daily activity on the forum.

Everyone who is passionate about plants and gardening is welcome, regardless of the experience level.

9. Gardenstew.com

Gardenstew is another veteran forum in the gardening niche.

The website is built on XenForo, a forum software that I love due to its modern features, good security, and fast loading time.

If you need to ask a question and receive an answer to it quickly, probably this is not the best place where to post it. Even though it has been around for many years, this community is not very big, and there isn’t too much daily activity.

10. TomatoVille.com

TomatoVille is another gardening-related forum that has been out there for many years.

Based on its name, I think this website started as a forum focused particularly on the discussion about growing tomatoes, but, currently, there are plenty of general gardening related topics.

There are several things that may discourage many people from joining this community.

The first one, and probably the most important is the fact that the website is not optimized for mobiles. That’s when more than 60% of people access the internet using only their mobile phones.

The second argument is that the design is outdated and looks like the owners of the site have neglected it in recent years.

Despite all the negative things, there are still active users who visit the community from time to time.

I have included this forum on my list because the user base is of a decent size, with more than 751,000 posts.