is pampas grass the floral du jour?

maybe i’ve been living under a rock, because all of a sudden pampas grass is everywhere and the only place i’d ever noticed it before was on the side of southern california freeway onramps. i posted about this beautiful installation (in which i was humiliated to find out they were not boa feathers, as I had originally thought, but indeed pampas grass, which was kindly pointed out by a couple of readers) and since then i’m seeing it everywhere. you know how that happens — you hear of something for the first time and then you start noticing it everywhere you go. anyway, it certainly is popular these days — for wedding and event decorations (pampas chandelier, anyone?) and as an update on the tried and true dried flower around the house. it’s definitely pretty — so feminine and flowy, and some of these unique uses of it are really beautiful.