Why rare plants disappear

Plants vanish from cultivation for prosaic reasons. They grow too slowly for the nursery trade. They refuse to root from cuttings in commercial volumes. Their flowers fade quickly or their fruit bruises easily, so they fail on supermarket shelves. Entire families of heritage vegetables, medicinal herbs and cottage-garden ornamentals have been silently replaced by twenty identical petunias bred to bloom until November.

Indigenous species face additional pressure. They evolved in concert with local pollinators, mycorrhizae and seasonal rhythms — assets that mean nothing in a garden-centre tunnel. A British wildflower meadow mix costs less than a tray of bedding, but it won't flower in year one, so it doesn't sell. Meanwhile, ancient British apples like Devonshire Quarrenden or Pitmaston Pineapple exist in fewer than a dozen orchards, kept alive by amateur grafters.

Home gardeners occupy a peculiar position. You can afford to wait three years for a rare peony to settle. You can nurse temperamental cuttings through winter on a windowsill. You can save seed from a single plant and grow it out again next spring. Commercial horticulture cannot do any of this profitably, which is precisely why your choices matter.