Years from now we will look at the turn of the millenium landscapes as those having modular block retaining walls chipped, settled, and fallen apart, concrete paver products in various states of disrepair and fading, granite cobble aprons and driveway edging, ornamental grasses that have spread throughout the beds, messy areas with struggling ground covers where someone tried to replace a lawn with something better, leyland cypress trees planted too close together, leaning ruins of pergolas, and settled rock piles that were once rubber lined koi ponds on the one hand.

On the other hand there has been a revival of masonry both as a material and a craft. There has been a wider cultivation and use of native plants (including some nice ornamental cultivars), more gravel driveways on high end houses as an aesthetic trend, and a tend toward not using traditional foundation plants.

Colored mulch that looks like shredded plastic. God help us.

There are regional differences, but I can still tell a yard landscaped in the early 60s whether it's in Cleveland or Austin.

So, yes, I believe there ARE fashions and trends. There are "landscaping guides" that are slavishly followed by designers, homeowners, and catered to by nurserys.
There are even "it" plants!
Bulbs, flowers, evergreens, and even trees have their heyday.

When did everyone plant a Norway maple? an Arizona ash? a Bradford pear?
If I say "Peace HT roses, white gravel, and St. Augustine grass," WHEN do you think of?
How about "Pampus grass" or "Khoelanche" or "Spider plants"?
"Serviceberry" or "lantana"?

Remember when flowers in the front yard were tacky and you only used evergreens in public spaces?
Think of the "bedding out" with perrenial flowers in your grandmothers' gardens--the ones with no bones, only brick edging.

So yeah--I would have to say that we will be able to point to a landscape and say "circa 2005."
Just like we can with kitchens. (laag's example?)

(of course, I believe it was my comment about 70's ornamental grasses that set nativenut off on this crazy path, but really, drive around sometime with a gardening friend and try to "date that yard"--you'd be surprised how easy it is!)

Oh, I'm so happy the landscape-educated on this site are addressing this issue. Being one of the non-landscape-educated-but-curious-as-hell among you, I have often wondered about landscape trends and modern decade style. I have found books on classical landscape history, but not one that addresses how landscape has changed (in the U.S) in the 20th and 21st centuries. (If you know of one let me know.)

There is the standard stamp of the time, just as a 70s movie is clearly a 70s movie. But there is also the subtle influence that permeates even one tries to have it be more "pure". For example, when you watch a 1970s movie that is a "period piece" set, say, in the 18th century, it is still crystal clear that is was made in 1970 something.

What is the standard stamp and what are the more subtle influences?

Patty

2005 - river birch, ornamental grass, hostas.

Comparing my dad's house (mid-80's) with my SO's mother's new house, both in cornfield turned housing developments, the basic landscaping has not changed.

Spirea
Burning Bush
Groundcover juniper
Weigela
Globe Arborvitae
Miss Kim Lilac
+/- a few other plants

1980's--Green Ash
2005--Autumn Blaze Maple, they're everywhere. Playing golf last fall in a new development, I think every front yard and back yard had this tree. The whole neighborhood was red (or red brown...not impressed). It looked so artificial. I wonder if we will be cursing this tree in another 30 years like we do the Norway and Silvers that were popular decades ago?

Aye! a crazy path twisting around pea gravel patios, hopping over indian hawthornes, and under the broken branches of bradford pears, but lets have some fun shall we? By dating ourselves, or our landscapes, we may learn something (at least what not to plant...)
NN

There is a regional, not to say national, influence on garden fashion. Generally speaking, landscape design in any real sense is a new thing in Quebec and until recently was non existent. I sometimes get requests like landscapers did in the 50's "I want you to plant a tree". There are whole areas in Montreal that were done by the same contractor and regardless of any other consideration have, once tiny conifers (now 40 feet high) growing amongst rocks. This is a style that you can not only date stamp but also name the maker. Other areas are so entrenched in what is considered a 'garden' that any other suggestion is heresy. The latest trend is knot gardens with squares of boxwoods with a lollipop in the middle and so as not be too radical the square is filled with impatiens. I designed a formal knot garden recently using circles (like at Filoli) which was rejected, knot gardens are square, you see.

Here in Seattle, we have a look that's no longer cutting edge but is followed/aspired to by a vast majority of interested gardeners. I believe it is based on the gardens of landscape designers Glen Withey/Charles Price and Thomas Hobbs (Shocking Beauty) and it features lush abundance of statement making plants. So, what you do is you surround your modest, in-town house with a tall, screening fence and trellising (Sunset magazine would be proud) and then you pack every square foot with euphorbias, cardoons, cannas, cerinthe, hakonechloa, coleus, purple heucheras and black mondo grass. A gunnera if you can possibly manage it. Oh yeah, a sango kaku maple is obligatory. Chartreuse/black is the most favored color combination.

I think the use of colored foliage will be something that marks this age of garden design.

This post I think is related...as an example of trendy gardening!

Even color choices are affected.
I can't help but think of the psychedelic HT rose colors of the 70s and early 80s.

The house was built in 1939. Here's a pared-down list of plants. Guess which decade each plant was added. -- Nell

Quercus
Juniperus virginiana
Pecan
Pinus
Cornus florida
Lagerstromeria
Redbud

Bahia grass
Centipede grass
Lirope
Vetiver

Buxus
Calycanthus
Camellia japonica
C. sasanqua
Clerodendrum bungeii
Cycad
Gardenia
Hydrangea quercifolia
Hydrangea macrophylla
Hydrangea serrata
Loropetalum
Philadelphus

Rhododendron ÂJudge SolomonÂ
R. ÂPink RufflesÂ
R. ÂDelaware WhiteÂ
R. ÂFormosaÂ
R. yedoense var. poukhanense
Osmanthus fragrans
Vitex agnus-castus

Echinacea
Gerbera Daisy
Hardy begonia
Hemerocallis 'Flava'
H. ÂPandoraÂs BoxÂ
H. ÂSilver VeilÂ
H. 'Sammy Russell' Red
H. Dark Red, unnamed
H. Fairy Tale Pink

Hosta ÂRoyal StandardÂ
Hosta ÂGold StandardÂ
Iberis
Lantana
Salvia elegans
Salvia leucantha
Shasta Daisy
Sisyrinchium
Stokesia

Canna
Colocasia
Crinum lily
Crocosmia
Lycoris radiata
Muscari armeniacum
M. paradoxum (Bellevalia)
Trumpet Lily ÂAfrican QueenÂ
Trumpet Lily ÂRegaleÂ

Clematis ÂJacksoniiÂ
Confederate jasmine
Mandevilla
Scuppernong grapes
Wisteria

Roses:
White Dawn
Queen Elizabeth
Nearly Wild
Belle de Crecy
Rose de Rescht
Gene Boerner

--You don't have to name the whole list, pick out some of the the more obvious.

>I designed a formal knot garden recently using circles (like at Filoli) which was rejected, knot gardens are square, you see.

*considers suicide...or murder...*

indianapolis 2006:
weaping cherries
bee balm
endless summer hydrangeas
red mulch

I have noticed the weaping trend of 2005/2006

I hate to tell everyone, but this decade is defined by Knockout roses, Stella d'Or daylillies, purple fountain grass, varigated or red foliaged everything, black plastic under red mulch, 'decorative' concrete retaining blocks used to edge beds, and copper garden accessories. Eeeek!!!

(and of course the short row of ornamental grass right inside the retaining blocks.)

Current trends here in northern California would include many of the same plantings as used in the PNW, with the specimen plants, burgundy/chartreuse/orange color schemes, and lush abundance style of plantings. Withey/Price are quite definitely cutting edge designers that know their plants, and others such as Little and Lewis and Linda Cochrane have helped define the look. In the PNW, as in North Carolina ala Tony Avent and all the J.C. Raulston influenced designers, zonal denial and playing the subtropicals off the native green backdrop of forest is still a strong trend.

I think American gardeners everywhere are all about new plants and expanding the range of plantings to incorporate the new and trendy. Regional influences are more strongly felt where the styles have evolved over time, and perhaps climate reinforces using the traditional tried and true plantings to give a collective style. This is a good thing in my mind, as I like seeing regional differences and common plants used well to give a region a distinct personality.

Here in California, there is no distinct planting style or regional look. This is the land of opportunity to garden with imperial zonal denial. Perhaps it should really be denial of limited water resources, and the natural cycle of summer dormancy and winter/spring growth that so many Californians find hard to accept. I try to be sensitive to water use, but do not myself really enjoy gardens that are totally dormant in July/August/September. I've done California native plant gardens, but find the limited summer flowering of most natives a constraint on my idea of a garden, and will almost always add other low water using mediterannean species or desert species to extend the color/texure spectrum and complement the natives. I prefer to see California natural gardens in habitat, and urban gardens as a melange of plantings appropriate to what we can grow well and sustainably here. Therefore, I find the local botanic gardens a wellspring of ideas, and thoroughly mix and match from subtropical cloudforests, South African and Australian and New Zealand plantings, succulents of all stripes, fall and winter blooming subtropicals and bromeliads, etc to come up with a California style of gardening that can only be done year round in such a mild mediterannean climate location. I like to think that this will one day be perhaps known as the Bay Area Style as defined by a keen group of gardeners known amongst ourselves as the Hortisexuals, with its geographic center located in Berkeley/Oakland. I know it is certainly a kindred spirit with what is going on in Seattle and Raleigh, NC, and elsewhere across the country...

The sub-tropical thing was definitely seen in the Chicago area beginning in the late 1980's. My group of gardening friends loved the Victory Garden on PBS back then, when the producers went all over the US to film interesting or edgy gardens made by fascinating people. Somewhere, I still have a videotape with the episode featuring Marcia Donahoe of the Hortisexuals. What an amazing garden! Another VG episode featured a garden I'd visited many times, that of Trudi Temple, in Hinsdale, IL. Allen Lacy's columns told us about JC Raulston and gave the addresses of wonderful nurseries with zone-pushing plants. My Northern Illinois friends and I ordered from Nancy Goodwin's Montrose Nurseries and Tony Avent's Plant Delights.

Maybe that innoculated us against the later nineties' fashion of stacking wedge-shaped concrete edgers & filling them with Stella d'Oros and annual red salvia.

Annie

bahia -

I do hope when you are talking to someone in person your conversation doesn't run on like your writing.

Try re-reading your scipt before posting it, as it is boring, confussing and just too d@!@m long to enjoy.

Jake

bahia- Do not be deterred by Jake. Some of us enjoy a good read.

I'm never going to tell anyone they wrote too long or need editing.

The whole thread is interesting.

I'll likely remember the last decade as the time when landscapes grew strange things like gnomes, gazing balls, solar lights, fire pits, kitchens and water falls growing out of mounds of earth on otherwise perfectly flat landscape.

It is also the time that I decided I must win the lottery so that I can have a stamped concrete driveway, manufactured stone exterior, and a sunken hot-tub. So far the only trends I have successfully adapted are the organic, heirlom veggies, endless summer hydragnea, knockout roses, collectors hosta and heuchera.

As I look at my own yard I wonder when it was that carving evergreens into odd high maintenance shapes and placing them in front of midwest ranches seemed like a good idea.

Well Jake,
I can't resist a reply... I looked at your member profile and now clearly see why you add literary critic to your many skills. I guess you can safely omit reading my replies, because they must be boring and illogical. I will admit that I can be long winded when writing, and no, I don't talk the same way I write, do you? I have slightly more years of direct experience in the design field, but do not proclaim myself to be an expert, I am still learning every day.

I also find myself thinking you might prefer reading USA Today to the New York Times, and probably did not recognize or acknowledge some of the people/places mentioned as being horticultural design leaders in their areas. You might find it instructive to do a google search on some of them and find out what you are missing. If talking about the Hortisexuals is threatening to you, no need to worry, I don't think there are any members in Nebraska as of yet. Although for those up to the challenge of plant geekdom, please feel free to use the term.

My writing style and gardens designed are my own, and will not please everyone. I think they speak for themselves, and I am not worried about abit of criticism. I have also been paid for giving talks as well as articles on garden design, approached to write at least two books, as well as commissions for projects ranging from a tropical garden for a local botanic garden, to work on palaces in Saudi Arabia and resort hotels in Indonesia. I like to think that my travels and work experience around the world give me a unique viewpoint on international trends as well as here in the USA...

No need to justify yourself here David, your contributions are always welcome. Jake, on the other hand......

Heh. "Imperial Zonal Denial." I like that. Kind of like Supersizing your zonal denial mania. Mind if I borrow it, David? Even here in cold New England, it perfectly decribes the attitude of gardeners who push the envelope to the max.

You have your tropicals in Zone 8 and 9 gardens. We have our crape myrtles, sabal palms and semi-hardy figs in zones 5 and 6.

Re. Zone denial: I've actually read magazine articles and books (!) that encourage gardeners to experiment and look for "microclimates" in their yards as places to grow non-zone-hardy plants. Maybe that approach appeals to the bungee-jumping gardener. Me, I'm a little too frugal and way too risk-averse.

Patty

Patty--

You'd have one nekkid yard where I live now, then. (Nekkid is like naked, only uglier.) *g* It isn't the ZONE that gets you but the dryness and intensity of the sun. I found Wal-mart and Lowe's very, very useful for playing "throw it in the ground and see if it screams for mercy."