10/15/2022
Where the hell did orchids and tulips come from?
When I was a kid, house plants and flowers looked nothing like they did today. They were small multicoloured things in plastic terracotta-imitation pots that littered the ground and shelves of the local CO-OP or the florist stall at the entrance to small shopping centres.
Commercial flowers and plants in Britain used to basically, and suspiciously, all look the same: very little green leafy-ness, and with paper thing bright orange/pink/blue/yellow/red petals that were the sort of petals you drew in primary school art class. They were all roughly 20cm tall from pot-base to petal, smelled basically of honey, and cost almost uniformly about £1.50-£2.50.
I think we can all remember vividly that an English shopping centre had two distinct things about it. One, a plastic train or spaceship that would rock back and forth for 20p. Two, it was littered with little pots of that one flower in particular - that has orange/dark yellow petals on the outside, with a dark brown centre. They were everywhere - those were the plants and flowers of Britain.
Now, florists and supermarkets are filled with orchids in the range of £8-15 (or sometimes more). Tulips, orchids - great green tall things that basically never flower, and seem to be attractive because they are spindly and tall and green and have a certain European elegance about them. Gone are the quaint cottage frilly bright pink and yellow paper-think leaves - in with BULBS and great green STEMS. It's all about the matte colour of your plant pot now with paint from Fired Earth, and the tasteful ugliness of the ovular bulbs sprouting 50-120cm above the plantpot. Seriously? It's a plant or flower, it's not meant to be a great green stalk that odiously and patronisingly sits in the corner slurping up CO2.
Whatever happened to the commercial English plant or flower? An analogy that sticks to my mind is the difference between a tabby cat and one of those ugly great slinky things with no fur.
