Some plants achieve Trendiness others have a trend thrust upon them and I think this is what happened to the Tree Ferns during  the last decade.

What causes an outbreak of trendiness?

1. Chelsea and other shows have a lot to answer for with their large budget gardens and the desire or obsession to be different. High profile gardeners are paid to produce sponsored gardens that in many cases no real gardener could want or afford.
2. I am sometimes called ‘a sardonic cynic’ but I think trends are often driven by the horticultural industry. They want to sell what they have grown not always what we want to buy. Again flower shows, magazines and TV programmes are used to force feed gardeners with a diet of ‘new’, ‘exciting’, ‘must haves’ but as with too much fertilizer we can get too much of a so-called good thing.
3. Gardeners aesthetic values and wishes can become trendy. Usually these trends or movements take a deal of time to come to fruition and are a reflection of society and other external pressures. RHS’s Harlow Carr has a series of gardens through the ages and it is interesting to see how tastes and gardens have evolved and developed over the decades and centuries.

Returning to Tree Ferns the RHS offers it’s usual quality advice to members on the web site. I think it is interesting that out of 1.2m hits on the web the two top ranking nurseries  selling Tree ferns are The Urban Jungle and The Palm Center two places I am unlikely to buy from.