To wonder how a plant can be common?

[CruCru]

I have been having some work done to my garden and am looking at which plants to put where. I want a white hydrangea in the front garden and my mum was horrified. Hydrangeas are common, you see. How can a plant be common?

sunbathe isn't it obvious? They're too phallic fir the front garden!

maybe she meant common as in not hybrid or japonica etc

There are definitely fashions and snobberies around plants. It's best to have what you like and not give a stuff I think.

Hydrangeas have been having a bit of a moment but not the common, as in see the same variety everywhere, kind . They're a beautiful and useful plant and some of the varieties are especially lovely. I have 2 common and 2 varieties in my shady garden. They do such a good job. I like to keep the colours strong in the common plants otherwise they do go a bit shit.

Also, I use the flowers from the back of the bushes as cut flowers. They last well and look very extravagant in a hige vase

Huge

My grand-dad had very fixed views on which plants were common and included buddlieia (sp) "it grows on train tracks!!!" and forget-me-nots.

I just have whatever I like. I like pretty flowers which grow easily also so native ones which I'm sure are "common" - I love forget-me-nots and aqualeiga everywhere

I rather like the long-headed white ones too, OP. They are very elegant.

They are quite low-maintenance aren't they? That always works for me.

Sorry, FunkyBoldRibena was the poster who liked the long-headed white hydrangeas.

I finally got my first buddleia this year and o luffs it. Its a posh one though with deep pink flowers and variegated leaves. I got it because it grows in alleys and railway tracks because I figured I wouldn't kill it -so far so good.

buddleia are great. Easy, vigorous, pretty, smell nice, pretty unkillable, and attract butterflies.

What's not to like!

LEM that is a great gardening tactic BTW. Go around and look at neighbours gardens see what seems to be popular, and stuff that is growing around - if it grows for them it probably will for you!

I also really like crocosmia. They are reliable and easy and pretty. That means they are common I guess!

It's snobbishness around things which you have to work for being more desirable I think. Things which just grow happily by themsleves are therefore looked down on.

:o I took great care over my hanging baskets making them all multicoloured and dangly like you would get in a nice pub garden. I LOVE hanging baskets. I was then shocked to read in some sunday supplement that they are considered absolutely naffola and something no sane modern gardener would ever consider! First I knew.

We don't have them in our current house as there's not a good place to hang them, but I'm planning some monster ones for when we eventually move. Have what you like!

Have always seen hydrangeas as "old lady" plants, along with buzzy lizzy begonia and geranium...I dislike them all. Red Robin bushes were described to me as common B&Q plants by our tree supplier, it was like a swear word to her!

Ooh I do geraniums too. Every spring I pot them up without fail, but change the colour scheme each year. I'm only 44.

red robin bushes?

The same way any object can be "common" - it's associated (in someone's mind, at least) with people from a certain social group.

Can we get a nice list of plants with stereotypes and then all test our mothers' reactions to them? :o

Just googled if you mean photonia and the reason I asked was because we live near some v v expensive and/or posh houses and quite a few of those have photonia out the front so that's interesting about the woman in B&Q!

Have what you like I think. Well unless it is massively invasive in which case have a care for your neighbours!

my gran used to say geraniums were common
but she had lovely hydrangeas

Hmm

I have a large Hydrangea in my front garden. I didn't know there was a class aspect to plants

There are loads of different hydrangeas though, not all are common. Or common

I like Hydrangea quercifolia.

Grow what you like . Pretension and looking for affirmation from others is the problem, not what you're growing.

I tend to think what makes a lovely garden is diversity. Large beds full of stuff (some of which may be hydrangeas), means less grass to mow. I'd be even keener on replacing the lawns with wild grasses and wildflowers, but it's hard to make wildflower meadows in a climate that might be more appropriately growing tundra... so I am stuck with well-behaved green lawns that mow nicely and don't grow too much!

Whaaat?

Nah, our huge blue hydrangea is staying on the grounds that it's one of a handful plants we've managed to keep alive for more than a year. I used to hate them, but MIL gave us a cutting so in it went and surprisingly it's done very well. It has also acquired a bright pink friend next to it that we didn't plant so I guess I have two hydrangea bushes now.

How funny, I've never liked hydrangeas and have always found them boring and plain common. No idea where my dislike comes from (I don't know anything about gardening or plants) but remember pointing out to a date in my early twenties that I "hate hydrangeas' . I haven't got the purse or manners to boot but there must be a wee flower snob inside me...