Council Plants Fake Flowers as Real Blooms Are Too Costly to Water

No flowers. No pollinators. Dearth of bees, Horticultural breakdown. Then comes Genetically Modified everything. Over ride nature and you destroy humankind one step at a time. I have a few plastic plants indoors but the garden is real.

Ridiculous idea, insects need plants, I'm sure the mentality I'll snow flakes will be happy, while normal people think this is complete madness

I can see the reasoning behind it, the cost of maintaining real plants is over three times the cost of artificial , borne by the taxpayers

But as mentioned by M there is no pollination that effects the insects

Maybe they should mix real and artificial to compromise ?

No this shouldn't happen as the insects need the flowers for pollination. And this idea would cost more in the long run as artificial flowers wouldn't last long outside due to the weather conditions, they would fade quickly and need replacing which would be costly.

I don't think it will be cost effective long term as these fake flowers will fade in the sun. Those will have to be replaced. Fake flowers aren't that cheap. Bees need flowers. Without bees we are in trouble. I guess the council don't want to pay a human to water the flowers and can't get a robot to do it.

Before I read the article I thought it wasn't a very good idea but now I have seen where the planters are located (the middle of a dual carriageway) I understand why they have done it and don't think it's a bad idea. I see the environmental argument and I'm not really familiar with the flower situation in North East Lincolnshire, but if they have enough elsewhere then I don't see what the issue is. The only thought I had really was that maybe these fake flowers would become tatty and faded quite quickly.

This surprises me as a lot of councils (within the last few years) choose the option to not maintain flowers and instead let grass/areas grow and allow wildflowers etc to grow for insects. I guess purely because of the location it's easier and better to have the fake flowers.

You’d think they were maintaining Kew Gardens or something! I mean, how often is drought an issue? They may as well start planting cacti if they think the arid conditions are long term

No that’s not right planting fake flowers what were they even thinking too lazy to water them?! I mean there is rain that will help do the job. They don’t even bother with cutting grass anymore and they are ridiculously long at some areas where I live

I mean it is getting ridiculous and so false economy, do they think these artificial ones are going to last forever, probably less time than normal plants/flowers. I fully agree with comments about bees etc we’ve got to keep them.

They could always go half with flowers and the other half with succulents that flower instead.

But on the other hand it will save lots of water. We are facing shortages and as more and more people flood (excuse the pun) into the country more people are using it. On the other side I agree it is not a good idea and surely they will get very many of the stolen, which is a sad indictment of today's world.