I daresay Panthea has now departed, but in case she is still reading -
You joined to give your opinion of the reponses to your friend. Fair enough. She inadvertently broke the guidelines when she sent private messages to posters ( at random ) advertising her book, and was hurt at the reaction of the moderators, and you were angry on her behalf. That was that.
But then you returned to say that this thread is "a lot of nit picking about what neighbours should or should not do, or people wanting reassurance about what they should do with their own Gardens. Why can you people not just make your own minds up instead of getting the opinion of other random women on this site?" and "this seems just nonsensical to me" You shouldn't be surprisd that those random women chatting peaceably didn't like your post. They were not very polite in their replies, but it wasn't a very polite criticism, was it?
They are not random women, they are online friends. And, by the way, your friend was circulating publicity emails to just those random women - which started the whole thing off.