I love a good strong opinion. Something robust, well considered, and even backed up with a few facts and figures just to round it off.
For example it is my opinion that British gardeners should prioritise planting trees wherever possible, so that we can enjoy their shade during the rather toasty summer we’re having. When it gets hot we like to gravitate to the shade, so why not have more shade in the garden? That’s my opinion.
Plant Shaming
There’s one type of opinion I’ve really had enough of: plant shaming.
This is where someone declares, with nothing more than their own personal tastes in mind, that certain plants are morally unacceptable.
Here in the UK it’s forsythias, Photinia ‘Red Robin’ and shrubby potentillas that get looked down on, but in other areas there will be other things.
Much depends on context, as demonstrated by this fine Photinia ‘Red Robin’
Terms like “car park fodder” (plants used in the landscaping of parking lots) are used by a particular type of gardener, one who has decided that their tastes are superior to those of lesser gardeners.
I’m sure these people think they’re being edgy and controversial. They probably think such opinions mark them as a true expert, people that others must listen to for some reason or other.
I don’t particularly like this variegated willow, but other gardeners love it
Dare I even suggest that such sentiments could even be an homage to the late, and very opinionated, Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter fame. There are two schools of thought about Christopher Lloyd’s writing: some say that he was an opinionated eccentric, while others argue that he was actually rather pompous.
Maybe both views are right?
Different Plants For Different Gardeners
So many gardeners make life difficult for themselves.
They, more accurately we, go to enormous lengths to track down some obscure treasure that will likely break our hearts when it checks out to that great compost heap in the sky.
We lavish care and attention on plants because part of the joy of gardening is to push our own abilities.
Shrubby potentillas flower for months and ask little in return.
Other gardeners prefer a bit more certainty. For them the familiar and reliable plants are the better choices. Those same plants denigrated by the arrogantly opinionated self-appointed judges of taste are treasured by gardeners who want to spend more of their time savouring their gardens and less of their time fussing with their plants.
And then there’s the subject of colour.
If you like roses like this, grow roses like this…
Some gardeners like everything to be oh-so-tasteful, with muted tones and swishing grasses, while others prefer their plants to be bright and showy. In the same way people can be extroverted, so can plants and gardens.
Reliable And Cheerful
If you want to see truly amazing plants, go and visit your local public places.
Not botanical gardens or nicely tended paywalled places, look for public planting along roads and in public parks.
This is where you come across the plants that are extremely reliable but also nice and cheerful too. They have to be; public spaces can be unforgiving.
Do public spaces have to be dull and uninteresting?
A lack of resources means that plants in public spaces need to get on with life without constant intervention, and public expectations demand plants look good for as long as possible.
Pollution, vandalism and carelessness, irregular watering… if a plant looks good despite these challenges then think how much better it could be in a private garden.
We should be looking at such plants as staples for our gardens, plants that will look after themselves while we spend time and energy on those plants that demand more attention.
Private Spaces
For a nation of supposed gardeners, Britain has a weird relationship with its public spaces.
Keen gardeners travel great distances to pay a sometimes eyebrow-raising admission fee to see some notable garden, but will assume public spaces are uninteresting.
Public spaces have in the past had quite a notable status. The rise of suburbia and the idea that everyone could, in principle, have their own garden means that public spaces are often neglected.
It seems celosias are coming back into fashion
This in turn means less funding is made available to maintain and develop public spaces, so they become more and more neglected, so fewer people use them and the spiral of decline continues. Ironically it is the rise of gardening for all that has dealt a blow to gardens that exist for all.
Now gardening is something we usually do as individuals, in gardens hidden behind fences and walls.
This has created a culture where some horticultural efforts are considered more valid than others; certain plants have gone the same way.
Popularity And Opinion
There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking a popular plant. Or conversely disliking it if you feel that way.
The issue for me comes when some add social baggage to muddy the water. If a plant does well for you and doesn’t cause you any issues then it is a good plant to grow; it is not for others to dictate what you can and can’t like.
We can’t all be lavishing our attention on trevesias and other currently trendy plants.
For years red hot pokers were seen as tasteless.
Opinions are absolutely fine if they’re presented with sufficient self-awareness and avoid trying to shame those who disagree. The diversity of gardening is what makes it such an interesting sunject. We must ask the gods of gardening to deliver us from yet another knock-off New Naturalistic garden, or from roses and perennials in pastel shades against white ceramic paving.
Gardens should be like people. They should have quirks and personality.
You don’t have to have a garden like this if you don’t want to.
And please… if a professional gardener or designer ever ridicules you or others, either in person or online, for your taste in plants just walk away. We might not all like the same thing but the plants you choose to grow are your business.
Perhaps taking this to an extreme, I have become quite intrigued by the plantings of businesses in the industrial areas of cities and towns. The desire for some contact with nature through growing plants in often the most inhospitable environments is both fascinating and admirable.
An excellent point. Buildings get ‘softened’ with planting because no matter how well designed the building there is still a feeling that a lack of vegetation at least somewhere will make it look rather brutal.
Surely the whole point of being a gardener is to seek out the different, the unusual, the hard to grow.
“Car park ” plants are by their nature easy to grow and common so to be shunned.
If everyone can grow it, there is no challenge.
That depends.
If you’re gardening purely to grow plants then this might be true, but if you’re gardening to create a garden then I would argue that plants that look after themselves are very helpful.
Christopher Lloyd was blunt and sometimes abrasive about plants and gardening practices, but wouldn’t criticise gardens. It’s shocking how much appreciation that got him. Shocking because it tells us just how bland his contemporaries were.
Has this changed?
Maybe he felt that criticising gardens would draw attention to his own?
I appreciate this. I am guilty of shaming what we call “parking lot plants.” Pondering on it, though, I don’t think I’m shaming the plants, exactly, but rather the fact that commercial landscapers throw them into huge lots with massive amounts of plastic/fabric and then walk away. No one seems to touch them for decades. I think the lack of care is what gives these plants a bad name in our area. Can’t someone just prune or weed or do something with them?
I actually saw someone weeding recently at one of our big box stores. I should have stopped and given her some attagirls. Maybe the massive propagation of newer, stronger cultivars will have a good effect on commercial spaces. I have hope.
Just to add— maybe private gardeners will use more of our “shamed” shrubs if they look better in public spaces. Some of them—shrubby potentilla especially—are beautiful in a sunny mixed border if given water and some love.
The issue of neglected public spaces is a tough one, but important. All too often it’s public horticulture that gets axed when economies are being made, leaving areas looking unkempt. Sometimes those left to look after plantings lack skills, but at every stage it’s those who make the decisions that should be taking responsibility.
I agree. Living in Australia, I long harboured a hatred for oleanders. Eventually I realised that because they were so tough they tended to be severely neglected (including by me). It turns out that given reasonable TLC they can be a very attractive element in a garden. Don’t get me started on agapanthus though…,
We can all have our tastes, but it’s good to look again at the plants we don’t like from time to time.
If we still don’t like them then fine, but it’s good to challenge our assumptions.
It’s not necessarily about what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it. –MW
Very true.
Just needs a bit of imagination.
Love this: “Gardens should be like people. They should have quirks and personality.” Truly, who wants every garden to grow the exact same plants?
Exactly.
Extroverted people should be allowed to have extroverted gardens!
I did flinch when I saw the photo of red hot poker! But to each his own. Poor old forsythia has been “suburban” for decades but what a garden friend at the end of winter. If we live long enough it will be stylish again? Like glads? All reasons for garden geeks to share our opinions with each other and leave normal people alone
We all have our preferences of course, but gardening would be tedious if everyone grew the same things. And of course it’s those with the courage to go against current fashions who end up leading the way with the next big thing.
“Malignant magenta,” anyone? Garden history tells us a lot about the comings and goings of plant taste, particular as a function of class anxiety. As for parking lot plants, at least in the US, the problem is often an indifference to ecology as well as to variety. Endless rows of Stella de Oro daylilies numb the eye. It’s not the plants’ fault – it’s the fault of landscapers who pay no attention to variety.
There is definitely a need to improve standards of public planting. Some planting is done because there are lazy people making decisions, but some is done because that’s what a demographic group actually likes!
But there is definitely room for improvement.
I have a soft spot for the downtrodden. Forsythia suspensa is so bright in late March. It cascades effortlessly one-hundred feet over a limestone cliff in Louisville’s Cherokee Park. What’s not to like about that?
Quite.
I had been in two minds about forsythias until I saw a particularly well grown clump in an arboretum; it was so beautiful, and drew attention to how badly they were being grown in so many gardens.
There’s a beautiful forsythia hedge at Dunbarton Oakes in Georgetown, Washington DC.
I am totally behind you on this. I tell my clients that the final test of a garden’s success is if it makes people happy. Since I believe that gardens are stylized versions of nature, with their creation filtered through our aesthetics, experiences, memories, and so on, they absolutely should bring us joy. As long as the plant isn’t too thuggish (and I’m ok with some of those), I say go for it.
Thanks for writing this.
Joy is what it’s all about.
Hypericum ‘Hidecote’ is mich derided but is so useful , cheerful and tolerant, as is Euonymus ‘Emerald and Gold’whoch is endlessly versatile. I spent a happy hour looking at the new planting around the Birmingham University campus, Geranium ‘Rozanne’ was the star, again maligned and overused but such a lot of bang for your buck.
Completely agree.
I’ve cut Hypericum ‘Hidcote’ virtually to the ground and had a newly refreshed plant full of flower just months later; you don’t get that resilience from most of the more fashionable plants.
Had to laugh at the red hot poker picture. I seem to recall Harold Nicolson remarking to Vita Sackville-West something about “those beastly red hot pokers that you love”. But you know, the most hated plants get bred into new things. I just bought two pastel and one white R.H.P.
Thing is, if something is a work horse in the garden- or commercial plantings, whatever- and stands the test of time, then what’s not to like?
I think the introduction of the smaller red hot pokers has stimulated new interest in the big old ones, which is great.
Plants make it into commercial plantings because they are the toughest of workhorses, and as you say what’s not to love?
I’ll agree with you on all, but this: “There are two schools of thought about Christopher Lloyd’s writing: some say that he was an opinionated eccentric, while others argue that he was actually rather pompous.”
My perspective on Lloyd was that he was just being frank, calling balls and strikes, being honest about his preferences and assessments. As a gardener trying to make good choices, I find that refreshing. Certainly, there were plants he eschewed. However, I don’t think he looked down on others for using them if they suited. In truth, he often came to the defense of what were considered “unfashionable” plants, precisely because they were plants he thought both beautiful and reliable. We need more of those honest opinions, particularly in a time when every new cultivar seems to have a social media influencer ready to flog them.
In a big country like the US, where there are many different climate regions, plant shaming can take on geographic aspects as well. I remember being mildly mocked for filling my first New York garden with peonies and bearded iris, plants that need a long cold dormancy period we couldn’t provide in Louisiana where I grew up. I was told that iris and peonies were “old lady plants”! In reverse, folks in the Northeast go to great expense and trouble to grow camellias in cool greenhouses, when they flourish like weeds in my mother’s garden back home. “We always want what we can’t have” said someone wise.