Plants that have gone out of fashion….and are due a revival

[BarkingUpTheWrongRoseBush]

Inspired by another thread about Kerri-a Japonica.

I also wonder about plants going out of fashion.

I love a lilac and remember them everywhere in my childhood …I’m planting a new dwarf one in my front garden. Also laburnum, they are everywhere but I don’t see new ones.

I love nasturtiums. And so does my doge, who eats the flower heads They grow as winter to spring plant in Melbourne, but do run riot rather.

Violas and pansies!

Couldn't shift them from our garden centre this year

Struggling to shift fuschias as well. And sedums

Wallflowers! I don't see many in gardens now but I love the scent and colours.

At our old house, where I gardened for 20 years, I had a border down the fence that was busting with old fashioned phlox. White, pink, mauve and a vibrant coral. They smelled fabulous. People who knew the house used to park and walk down the sidewalk admiring them.

The new owners have pulled most of them up.

I miss them. Old fashioned, but lovely,

Lovefall How sad to pull up the phlox. Like wallflowers they have a very evocative, somehow spicey, scent. I planted some mauve wallflowers they were beautiful but lived for 3 years or so.

The real old fashioned orangey\yellowy ones last forever and self seed a bit in my garden .

gardening Violets grow madly wild here in the early spring but when I tried pansies they were completely unsuccessful

I’ve always grown fuchsias because they cope with shade but, thinking about all the many gardening magazines I’ve read in the last few years, they’re rarely mentioned. I suspect they’ve fallen out of horticultural fashion, but no doubt like dahlias and hydrangeas they’ll be back!

We planted bare-root wallflowers every year in London. I have a large pot of them in my garden here, the deep russet red ones. I deadhead it at the end of the season, and it's doing quite well. I remember them as massed bedding plants in parks as a child, probably why I remember the smell as so pervasive.

Yes echt we had wallflowers when I was little I suppose that's why I love them so much (talking the 50s ). No one planted them they just grew! I just don't get the "Old fashioned" thing at all, surely we have what we like?

I'm surprised they're happy in Aus. do you live in a temperate area?

I vote for sedum and nerines.

Look at the dahlias, deader than the dodo a couple of years ago, everybody's darlings now.

Chardonnays I LOVE to look at dahlias (there's a house in Golders Green that has had their garden full of the most wonderful display of them for MANY years) .

I can't grow them for toffee. Too much trouble. I like sedums they just grow here, Nerines are lovely but are like dahlias IMO!

I love dahlias, but so seems do the snails.

They've eaten the lot this year.

Haven't seen phlox for years.

@ppeatfruit

Yes echt we had wallflowers when I was little I suppose that's why I love them so much (talking the 50s ). No one planted them they just grew! I just don't get the "Old fashioned" thing at all, surely we have what we like?

I'm surprised they're happy in Aus. do you live in a temperate area?

Yes. A lot of Victoria is temperate, though that is compared to the tropical bits and the desert-y bits. Tasmania has more of the climate of southern England. I put my pot of wallflowers under the carport in summer, out of the summer sun.

Yellow climbing roses and potentilla used to be everywhere but are only grown in old people's gardens round here

I have a beautiful yellow climbing rose. And plenty of yellow plants. Why are they last century?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow it's a fashion thing, if you look at what the big colour and plant trends are at Chelsea there are strong trends. Golden Showers was a very popular yellow climbing rose introduced in 1956 and still popular but not used by trendy garden designers anymore. They are not horrible but are from the same era as Percy Thrower and conifer and heather beds.
There is nothing wrong with yellow its just harder to mix with more subtle shades in designs. Great if you are doing a "hot" design.
All of the out of fashion plants can be used to great effect but I'd say its a bit like buying clothes in M&S, the odd item chosen carefully great, whole wardrobe from Per Una, no.
I am a bit ruthless with plants though, I won't nurse elderly Rose bushes that have gone all spindly and are the wrong colour, they are gone!

I don’t care what ‘trendy’ garden designers do. I want my old fashioned cottage garden. All the more reason for using yellow.

I’m a garden designer and I use yellow all the time. A lot of clients ask for blue and white colour schemes, and I spend a lot of time persuading them of the benefits of yellow flowers! They make blues and purples sing when combined, are a staple in late summer borders and nothing repeat nothing brings more joy in early spring than bright sunshiney yellows after winter dullness. Everyone loves a daffodil.

Love yellows and purples together, @VenusClapTrap
Don't see much honeysuckle either- smells gorgeous.
Slugs ate my marigolds the slimy beggars

Venusclaptrap, l trained in design and taught it for ages.

You are so right, the effects of colours together are essential. Blue and orange and purple and yellow are complementary colours. So used together they make each other stand out. I also love orange and blue.

I like harmonious colours together too with pops of other colours.

I'm a garden designer who also went to art school so I know all about complementary colours, i still maintain that bright yellow is one of the harder colours to work with, i like certain types of yellow flowers, especially soft primrose yellow but i will never love yellow or orange begonias for instance and that's what i think of when i think of unfashionable plants.
I am not keen on planting complementary colours next to each other either, id never wear a purple and yellow outfit! Each to their own.
I do like lime green flowers, primrose yellow and cream, i guess i like colours dialled down a bit, not a fan of bright red either!

I do make an exception for daffs, although Thalia is my favourite.

I’ve tended not to use much yellow or orange, but have realised that my red/purple/lime colour schemes can look too heavy, so have been adding touches of yellow and orange. I’ve even succumbed to the joys of the red hot poker (although not actually in red) - another plant which seems recently to have come out of the horticultural fashion doldrums.

My Thalia were blind this year. Do you think the bulbs are simply too old, or should I give them a reprieve and hope for better next year?

Like Arse says why should we be haltered by colour fascism, have what you like !

Oh Wbeezer (I also studied art , the colour wheel, etc) and the newest fashion is "SAVE THE WORLD LOVE YOUR WEEDS!" Rewilding !! As far as I can tell ! Yellow is the new colour to be this ,and for all seasons hopefully!! Like the 'fashions' in clothes we need to be very careful with what we buy and what we do in our gardens forever.

My Thalia were blind this year. Do you think the bulbs are simply too old, or should I give them a reprieve and hope for better next year? They might have been too dry over the summer, or they might have got too crowded and need digging up and re-planting with greater spacing.

Thank you, Dint. I shall replant and hope for the best.