Fashions in Flowers

I am frequently struck by the way flowers seem to go in and out of fashion, but seemingly they do.When I think of the pattern of sales over the past few years, it seems to support this premise. I suspect that those flowers shown frequently in gardening programmes and those chosen as star performers at the great gardening shows are bound to have their moment of glory, but there are definite trends apart from this. A number of years ago, lavender was all the rage and I sold almost everything I painted , this was followed by opium poppies, then wild flowers like buttercups and dandelions, then we had the sunflower, then the hellebores, then Iris.I've had a bit of a run on foxgloves as well. Now, I am hoping that it is the turn of the agapanthus.
I am besotted by these beautiful stately flowers and I love their gorgeous blue colour, especially the deep blue ones. I have never painted nor sold many blue studies, so maybe the time has come!
I have tried endlessly to grow these in my garden (together with delphiniums) but they do not like the soil. and although, from time to time, I get plenty of leaves, I have only ever had one fairly pathetic bloom.
Against my better judgement, I have just acquired a large pot planted with two varieties. For the time being I have left them in the pot to over winter, so they can be more easily protected. I have painted the flowers from this pot 3 times recently as I cannot be sure if they will flower again next year. I am ever optimistic!At the last exhibition, I sold the only one I had previously painted, and regretted it as soon as it left the building, so I now have the dilemma, about which one to keep and which to put up for sale in the next exhibition. Isn't life hard!!

I hope you enjoy looking at the three paintings and would be interested to know which you would keep, if any!

 All three are painted on Fabriano Extra white 300 gm paper. I have as feeling that the 3rd one is suffering a bit of bad photography, and the colour rendering is not quite as good as it should be.