The vanishing collectable: On economy,honour and the ‘English garden’

How is it possible to conceive a system of value and hierarchy, i.e. a collection, when the absolute can only be achieved when the collection vanishes? Using the dramatic events of the British garden scene in the 18th-century as a backbone, this article will argue that gardening in general and high-stake gardening in particular show in several ways the intrinsic aspects of what can be referred to as an honour economy, not guided by commonly accepted thoughts of utility and transactional value but rather driven by notions of loss and conspicuous activities such as consumption, leisure and waste.