Beginning in the 1960s, a paradigm shift occurred in the American residential landscape.
Folks no longer thought their back yards were for the swing set, tool shed, veggie garden, pet runs and clothes lines. Many homes did not even have back doors; only front and side doors.
In the 1960s, we discovered, what the very fortunate knew for years, the back yard was also for entertainment.  Swimming pools and charcoal grills hit the market. Exposed finished basements, mid-story large deck spaces and three story back yard edifices rapidly become the norm in the suburban scene.

This trend continues today with multilevel patios, decks, aquatic features with streams and arroyos, hot tubs, permanent outdoor fireplaces with built-in grills, screened rooms with weather-proof air-circulating fans, artificial putting greens, sport surfaces, children’s gym sets, rain gardens, thematic gardens, ornamental lighting, automatic irrigation and drip systems and peripheral insect control fogging systems.

Natural stone continues to be the material of choice in many landscapes. Building on the influence of Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other stone and boulder gardening societies, our landscapes are expanding on these concepts and incorporating them more commonly into our designs.

Brick, one of the more ancient building and paving components, is having a renaissance. While brick still comes in clay and concrete, the manufacturing techniques and their quality has vastly improved from antiquity. Improvements in colors, shapes, textures, surfaces, sizes and durability allow paved area to express simple monochromatic to complex multi-colored patterned surfaces. 

Curb Appeal, one of the big buzz words, enhances the appearance of your home from the street. Remember, it’s the first impression folks have when arriving for a visit. While the entertainment is still in the privacy of the back yard, curb appeal is becoming more complex. OUT: with the rigorously pruned rows of green meatball globes, boxes and cubes of Taxus-Yews, Juniperus and Spiraea. IN: with more relaxed, colorful, natural and feeling landscapes. 
Feng Shui and Ying Yang are the buzz words in landscapes.

Modular concrete retaining walls have certainly improved from the early days of silo staves, wood, recycled railroad ties and building blocks.  Many of the companies that manufacture concrete modular components arose from the dying silo manufacturing companies. They have come a long way in the quality, aesthetic appearance, color durability, design engineering and parameters.

Water management, avoiding the rapid run off of water from impervious surfaces, is working with rain barrels, porous surfaces and rain gardens. While porous surfaces still have a lot of kinks to work out, it is a sound idea. Rain barrels only work if the water is used and the excess is not spilled directly along your foundation. Water management and rain garden are contemporary buzz words.

Xeriscapes and other eco-friendly landscapes are on the rise.  Designing and installing plants and materials that are suited to the existing environmental conditions are being utilized more frequently.  We should stop trying to grow acid loving plants in alkaline soils and watering them with alkaline tap water. Conversely trying to grow alkaline loving plants in acidic soils is also tainted logic. Planting and maintaining moisture loving turf grasses and other plants in hot desert environments is a form of eco-abuse.

Rooftop gardening is not growing moss on your roof and seedlings in the gutters. This is growing plants on a rooftop to green the environment. Few existing residential Wisconsin roofs could tolerate the weight of the growing medium and heavy winter snows. But, built with a green roof as part of the construction, the environmental benefits can be significant. Green Roofs is another contemporary buzz word.  For more information visit: http://www.greenroofs.com/

Mammals
Deer, rabbits, mice, voles, chipmunks, moles, fox, wolves, gophers, rats, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, badgers, bears, mink, elk, cattle, weasels and the like, are uncommonly enjoyed in our landscapes.  We have eradicated most of the carnivores from our residential landscapes. So, what we have left are herbivores and omnivores. We have allowed these populations to explode, causing changes to our ecosystems that are resulting in major environmental damages. What self respecting herbivore would eat Alliaria petiolata-Garlic mustard, Lonicera-Eurasian Bush Honeysuckle or Rhamnus cathartica and R. frangula-Buckthorn when there are delicious, ‘mother nature taught them to eat’ Aronia-Chokeberry, Ceanothus americanus-New Jersey tea, Cornus-Dogwood, Hamamelis virginiana-Witchhazel, Viburnum and a host of other wonderful native delights. Our impact on the landscape goes far beyond paving paradise with parking lots.

Birds
Raptors, crows, pigeons, grackles, geese, gulls and blackbirds are typically uninvited guests. Most of the others are welcomed and even encouraged in contemporary gardens. We put out heated bird baths with auto-fill drip systems. We build aquatic features with streams and shallows to give them habitats they hopefully will enjoy. We place tons of bird seed and other foods in our gardens to entice them to inhabit our landscapes. We grow plants in the hope they will enjoy them as food and habitat. We do this without any regard to the changes we are causing to the environment. Some migratory birds now reside though out Wisconsin’s winters. Cardinals used to be rare in Wisconsin and are now common. The Audubon Bird Guide Published in 1953 didn’t even mention Cardinals in Wisconsin.  

Reptiles
Snakes, turtles, lizards, crocodiles thriving in Wisconsin gardens? I would love to have some garter snakes in my garden.  But alas, reptiles in Wisconsin gardens, uncommon.

Amphibians
Salamanders, toads, and frogs are fairly common in Wisconsin gardens. These are wonderful creatures and should be encouraged in the residential garden. Any creature that eats insects is a friend of mine.

Fish
We not only love the sounds of moving splashing water, but most folks who have aquatic features enjoy stocking them with fish.  If you are fortunate to live near a natural body of water, fish are common. If not, we are increasingly more apt to install aquatic features to maintain them in our landscapes.

Invertebrates
Spiders, mites, millipedes, centipedes and roly-polies are common in Wisconsin gardens even though we don’t notice nor typically encourage them. Many of these enhance our soils, devour untold numbers of insects and consume live and decaying plants, and animals including their by products.

Insects
Butterflies, yes. Almost all others, no way. Japanese beetles, do I need to even ask? Moths, some may be okay. We grow plants specifically for attracting butterflies to our gardens. However, you can’t have adults without the children. So put away the chemicals and enjoy the butterflies in all of their life stages as they enjoy your garden. I realize it is sometime very difficult to tell the difference between the larvae of moths, sawflies, butterflies and others, but there are some excellent books and on-line information explaining the differences.

 IMMEDIATE gratification
Our contemporary societies are seemingly based on now is better. We don’t wish to wait for something to grow, it requires too much time. We want INSTANT gratification or even ANTICIPATED gratification. We desire larger caliper trees, larger and more mature shrubs and herbaceous perennials for our gardens. This is also reflected in the sales of more mature annuals. Pierre Bennerup of Sunny Border Nurseries coined the word TEMPERENNIALS. These are plants that in their native environments are long lived perennials but in our climate, they would not survive our winters. Tried and true old friends include: Geranium, Coleus (Solenostemmon), Hibiscus, Canna, Begonia, Impatiens, Kalanchoe, Lantana and Fuchsia. We now have these available as more mature plants with many new taxa and improved desirable traits. Solenostemmon that rarely flower, tall bushy Begonia, Impatiens with blue and orchid-like flowers and variegated ornamental leafed Canna are now part of the contemporary garden scene. Along with these traditional ones, we have the more unusual TEMPERENNIALS such as: Banana, Palm, Datura, Brugmansia, Abutilon, Arctotis, Aptenia, Dalechampia, Echevieria, Isolepsis, Farfugium, and Tunera to name a few. Within a few minutes, we can have huge pots of TEMPERENNIALS adorning the portico, deck and patio areas. Just add water. The fertilizer has already been added to the soil mixes.

Fertilizers
Timed Release fertilizers began showing up in the 1960s. Today, they are being used in all forms of landscape maintenance. Unfortunately, folks still use rapid release fertilizers with dire consequences to our aquifers. Fertilizers are available that release nutrients based on temperature, soil moisture and bacterial activity. These new fertilizers avoid the feast and famine aspect of rapid release fertilizers as they slowly release plant nutrients during their entire growing season. http://www.landscapedesigns.bz/PLGF.html

Botany vs Horticulture
One of the dynamic attributes of horticulture is scientific nomenclature.  With new and-or corrected names appearing at a feverish pace in the botanical literature, it is difficult if not impossible to keep up with the changes.  Changes in Genus includes: Cimicifuga to Actaea, Anemonella to Thalictrum, Aster to Eurybia, Symphyotricon and others, Acothopanax to Eleutherococcus, Chrysanthemum to Argyranthemum, Leucanthemopsis, Leucanthemum, Rhodanthemum, and Tanacetum, to name a few. Just because of a name change, you may think you are getting some wonderful new plant, when indeed it’s the same that you already have. Hopefully the botanists will get this sorted out soon. For more information The Plantsman 6(3): 188-189.

Plant imports arriving from China, Japan, S. & Central America and Europe are not only using different genus names, but also different epithet and cultivar names. Salvia x sylvestris ‘Blauhügel’ been anglicized to Salvia x sylvestris ‘Blue Hill’. I guess the original language names are considered, by the American horticultural industry, to be too difficult for us to pronounce or use.
Then there’s the confusing issue of patent names and cultivar names.  Buxus ‘Chicagoland Green’ (the cultivar name) is the same as Buxus ‘Glencoe’ (the patent name). It’s common for new introductions to have these two valid names.  Caveat emptor.

POP Sales
A great deal of energy is being put into plants with better POP - Point of Purchase appeal. If the plant, label AND pot does not look good at the time it is offered for sale, it may not sell. We want to see every little Marigold plant in its tray of 72 seedlings, then 48 in a tray, then 36, then 18, and now in 6” individual pots; to be perfect and in full flower. Even if the one that is not in flower may be healthier, it stays on the shelf until it blooms. It is not uncommon that the best plants at POP; are not the best performers once they begin to grow in your garden. However, we desire immediate IMPACT and COLOR.  Remember when we went to a greenhouse, bought some of these and six of those? The staff would remove the plants with a bit soil from their reusable wooden trays, wrap them in recycled dampened newspaper, place them in a paper bag and you went home and planted them. Today, they are individually contained in a non-recyclable full-color printed, pink plastic, or some other notorious colored plastic pot, with an artificial growing medium, with a non-recyclable individual full colored metallic luster plant tag, placed in a plastic tray or bag and arranged on an imprinted plastic trunk liner for you to take home and plant. Once planted you toss everything except the plant into the trash.  What would the nursery think if you brought your own newspaper to wrap the plants in and leave the pots for them to reuse? (At LDI Nursery, we reuse most every uncompromised solid black, green, white or terra-cotta colored containers. So, bring them back, and we will put them to good use. Sorry, we don’t recycle the little cell packs that annuals are sold in.)
POP sales include nearly every aspect of nursery stock from annuals, to perennials, shrubs and trees. Pretty packaging sells.

New Plants