It’s easy to be an accidental trend-setter here. Plants that are common and been widely available for decades elsewhere occasionally make it to the local GC shelves - then the staff are intrigued when I snap them up. Verbena Bon is novel and super-trendy at the moment, having only become available in the last few years.
I’m a sucker for new cultivars of my favourite perennials that are allegedly more compact, because things can grow outsize here. They often don’t live up - or should that be down - to the claims.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
It's just human nature to be influenced...nothing particularly surprising about it.
Sure, but to want to be influenced by advertising?
The whole point of advertising is to influence a person without their
realising it. It's merely retail propaganda. It is human nature to want
constant change otherwise we would still be wandering around in the
clothes of a very bygone era, ditto the hairstyles. It all goes around
in circles and the present desire to help nature by allowing native
plants to flourish will, sadly, go the way of all trends and be replaced
by something else.
As to the huge loss of plants due to being planted in the wrong place, sometimes it's a question of seeing if anything will grow in a particular spot rather than selecting something that seems right for the conditions. Builder's rubble is great for buddleia but it takes a lot of trial and error (and money)to find the other hardy creatures that will thrive alongside.
Fashion is hugely wasteful whether it be the trend for new plants, clothes, furniture or cars but unless we can change human nature, people will always crave the new.
I only grow the things that I find interesting or have been gifted. If I don't find something interesting, I don't grow it, so I don't really care if it's in fashion or not. At the end of the day my garden is for me, not for pleasing others.
I must be non human then. It is a rarity for me to be seen in anything other than leggings and a jumper unless it's a funeral and my hairstyle hasn't changed in 50 years!
As far as the garden is concerned I only buy plants that I think will fit in to the unique piece of landscape of which my garden is part, and that will be likely to survive here. The only exception is annuals for pots where I allow myself to play around a bit.
Humans like novelty and innovation, for sure. Old wine in new bottles.
I find it interesting to read Dorothy L Sayers novels and her descriptions of brightly colour bushy salvias in about 1932. People "discover" things again (as Nolllie says) and they feel all new. Like Christie and Orwell, Sayers was very interested in horticulture and her novels are filled with flowers.
I seem to end up with my own trend each year. I buy lots of something and, now and again, I grow to dislike them. This has happened with grasses but not with penstemons or ferns. I think it will be euphorbia next year. I have already bought three varieties and am definitely getting some more. Slug proof and drought tolerant. What's not to like?
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An excellent candidate for the Word that pushes your Button thread.
I’m a sucker for new cultivars of my favourite perennials that are allegedly more compact, because things can grow outsize here. They often don’t live up - or should that be down - to the claims.