Why swingers spelled doom for pampas grass
Sales are plunging because exotic garden favourite tells passersby that owners are happy to swap partners
Pampas grass may appear to be – to the uneducated eye – no more than an exotic addition to the garden. However, the plant’s rumoured association with adventurous sexual practices has been blamed for a slump in sales. Apparently the plant, when placed in the front garden, has been used as a signal that the home’s occupants are swingers, and many nurseries have stopped stocking it entirely as demand has dried up.
FOR decades it was a common feature of suburban front gardens throughout Britain, adding a touch of exoticism to more everyday native planting.
But an unfortunate association with liberal sexual practices appears to have heralded the end of pampas grass as a gardener’s favourite.
Plant sellers says sales have plummeted – in no small part due to the plant being regarded as a secret signal to passersby that its owners are happy to indulge in partner swapping, or “swinging”.
Many nurseries have stopped stocking it entirely and even large suppliers have seen numbers plummet, as buyers shun the plant for fear of its connotations.
Palmstead Nurseries, which sells plants to garden designers for households, commercial gardens and public spaces, says the plant has fallen out of favour. A decade ago the firm, based in Ashford, Kent, was selling an average of 550 of the plants every year. Annual sales fell to less than 500 five years ago and are now as low as 250.
The plant is one of the least popular of the company’s grass varieties, some of which are so in demand that it sells thousands of plants every year.
Nick Coslett, the company’s marketing manager, said it had fallen out of fashion in part because it was seen as a signal that swingers lived in a house.
He said: “It’s just not in fashion at the moment. I’ve got no evidence that it was ever actually used for that – I think it goes back to the fact that it was planted in people’s front gardens. But there is that connotation, unfortunately. It’s all part of that Seventies, kitsch feel.”
The plant’s association with swinging has been dismissed as a myth by pampas enthusiasts, but broadcaster Mariella Frostrup said she had inadvertently identified herself as a swinger by planting the grasses outside her Notting Hill home a few years ago.
Since the arrival of her two Cortaderia selloana plants, the presenter said she had been inundated with unwanted inquiries. She wrote on Twitter at the time: “Bought two and put them on my balcony. Neighbours have been swarming!”
Steve Dawson, a buyer for Crocus, the largest gardening website in the UK, said it now sold around 300 pampas grass plants a year – a fraction of the amount it sold of other grass varieties.
“A lot of people used to put in their front gardens. I think people are probably a bit embarrassed about doing that now,” he said.
Another plant nursery, Worcesterbased Bransford Webbs, said it had stopped selling pampas grass altogether over a decade ago, because sales figures were so poor.
George Hillier, of the Hillier garden centre chain, said embarrassment over the plant’s connotations could explain poor sales, but its size and the difficulty of removing it were also factors.
“Once it’s in and really established, getting rid of it is a couple of days worth of work,” he said.