Public urged to grow unusual plants to safeguard diversity of UK blooms

Of more than 133,000 cultivated plants assessed by Plant Heritage, more than half are no longer reliably offered for sale in the UK. Photograph: Gordon Scammell/Alamy

More than half of garden plants previously grown in the UK are no longer offered for sale as flower fashions and modern gardening trends have reduced the diversity of blooms.

Plant Heritage is asking the public to choose unusual plants for their gardens, and maybe even start their own national collections of rare blooms, in order to stop some cultivated plants from dying out.