The thread is about which flowers we consider Naff. The responses are in kind and appropriate. There are so many forms of flower and so many colours that we cannot possibly like them all and it's perfectly OK to exercise personal taste when choosing what to plant and what not to grow.
A similar conversation could be had about soft furnishings or clothing but this is a gardening forum so plants and flowers it is. If you like your fat, blousey, plasticky looking begonias that's fine but don't expect us all to like them. Do please stop trying to provoke argument and dissention, especially when it leads you to show your amazing ignorance of botanical naming conventions and the reasons for them. It's a system that has been evolving for centuries and which works.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
All a matter of taste, but it’s interesting how some plants fall out of fashion and are considered naff - dahlias for a long time (am still trying to persuade OH they are not, which prompted this thread) Gladioli still on the cusp? Chrysanthemums are coming back in, I recently read. I do admit to a slight shudder over the word ‘bedding’. Obviously you should plant what you like, but what are your top naff plants you would avoid like the plague?
Sorry to quote myself but this thread was never intended to sneer and I don’t believe any responses sneered either. I used the word consider for a reason. Just because I or anyone else considers a plant not to my taste ( ‘naff’ was intended to be light-hearted and happened to be the word used by my OH in relation to dahlias) it does not make it so.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
I can see both sides of this argument but I'm absolutely certain the thread wasn't started with the intention of upsetting anyone. Very few posts on this forum are.
@B3 I think you are the first person I've ever heard say they don't like sweet peas.....summer wouldn't feel like summer to me if I hadn't sweet peas in the garden and @stewyfizz you don't like roses?......really?!
I don't like sweet peas or roses either!
I love roses as cut flowers but they're too traditional for me in the garden.
I love the idea of an old jug filled with perfumed sweet peas sitting on the kitchen table or the sideboard. Unfortunately, they're proving difficult to grow here cos of the heat and I didn't fare any better in my cooler Belgian garden as it was often just too cold.
I've gone to the other end of the spectrum and planted some dahlias for cutting and hope for colour if not scent. They should at least do better here than in my last garden.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I don't think any plant naff in the right place, I have dislikes and tastes like everybody else. I had dislikes of grasses - euphorbias - persicaria for a while, but now I already have a few grasses, desperately trying to get a euphorbias characias black pearl and persicaria are winning me over especially Pericaria A Alba.
I've still never took to heathers, don't get me started on the multi coloured ones. I find them incredibly boring most of the time, I have seen the odd nice one in flower but no I still won't have any. Not so keen on alchemillia mollis but it can look beautiful with the right plants / place, monty don AM look stunning with the acanthus.
I agree to some extent some bedding can look a bit naff, I am not so keen bedding borders. But they do seem to have a large dislike on the forum, I think they are great in pots / troughs / baskets for colour 5-6 months, not so many perennials can match most bedding annuals in terms of flowering and colour over a season.
Just rose bed are very old fashioned in my opinion, I always feel they are missing out on a beautiful border. I love roses but they always look better planted with perennials.
Oh dear, I see my comment about disliking the term "naff’ prompted
negative reactions. My comment was intended as a general observation about
gardening culture (i.e. I was thinking of newspaper columnists and the idea of gardening
fashion) and not as a criticism of those who posted on the discussion.
I only joined the forum a week ago and clearly need to learn
the etiquette expected here. Based on my experience of other forums, I thought
it would diverge into a discussion about the concept of "naff’ and how such terms are used. I thought my comment would be the start of that divergence.
So, sincere apologies for getting the tone and content
wrong. I’m so delighted to have found this forum; I check it before and after work and am eager to participate where I can. I certainly don't want to be negative, but I misunderstood the normal tone here.
That said, I’m confused by references to ‘stirring up
problems’ or ‘your amazing ignorance of botanical naming conventions’. I only
joined a week ago so I hope I’m being confused with someone else in these references.
Posts
A similar conversation could be had about soft furnishings or clothing but this is a gardening forum so plants and flowers it is. If you like your fat, blousey, plasticky looking begonias that's fine but don't expect us all to like them. Do please stop trying to provoke argument and dissention, especially when it leads you to show your amazing ignorance of botanical naming conventions and the reasons for them. It's a system that has been evolving for centuries and which works.
I love roses as cut flowers but they're too traditional for me in the garden.
In the sticks near Peterborough
I've gone to the other end of the spectrum and planted some dahlias for cutting and hope for colour if not scent. They should at least do better here than in my last garden.
I've still never took to heathers, don't get me started on the multi coloured ones. I find them incredibly boring most of the time, I have seen the odd nice one in flower but no I still won't have any. Not so keen on alchemillia mollis but it can look beautiful with the right plants / place, monty don AM look stunning with the acanthus.
I agree to some extent some bedding can look a bit naff, I am not so keen bedding borders. But they do seem to have a large dislike on the forum, I think they are great in pots / troughs / baskets for colour 5-6 months, not so many perennials can match most bedding annuals in terms of flowering and colour over a season.
Just rose bed are very old fashioned in my opinion, I always feel they are missing out on a beautiful border. I love roses but they always look better planted with perennials.
Oh dear, I see my comment about disliking the term "naff’ prompted negative reactions. My comment was intended as a general observation about gardening culture (i.e. I was thinking of newspaper columnists and the idea of gardening fashion) and not as a criticism of those who posted on the discussion.
I only joined the forum a week ago and clearly need to learn the etiquette expected here. Based on my experience of other forums, I thought it would diverge into a discussion about the concept of "naff’ and how such terms are used. I thought my comment would be the start of that divergence.
So, sincere apologies for getting the tone and content wrong. I’m so delighted to have found this forum; I check it before and after work and am eager to participate where I can. I certainly don't want to be negative, but I misunderstood the normal tone here.
That said, I’m confused by references to ‘stirring up problems’ or ‘your amazing ignorance of botanical naming conventions’. I only joined a week ago so I hope I’m being confused with someone else in these references.