Fish out of water

We really are a vile lot. We collect exotic living things from around the globe when we think they might usefully serve us, but if they survive and thrive to the point that they can manage perfectly well on their own, we regard them as a pest; parakeets, grey squirrels, Egyptian geese, mink, possums, the Windrush generation to name but a few.

I was horrified to see these poor bougainvillea plants shivering in the drizzle outside the local florist. I had just walked along a road of Georgian townhouses resplendent in their competitive wisteria and taken heaps of photographs. Does anyone really expect these beautiful Mediterannean specimens to survive in this dreary climate? And if they do? If they oust the wisteria? What then?