Landscaping Design Trends for 2012 and beyond
Less Lawn & More Planting
As people all over the world become more environmentally aware, it is likely that contemporary landscaping design will favour less lawn and more planting. It is a simple fact that a well-manicured lawn consumes a great deal of energy, both in terms of the gardener working on it, and in the larger environmental sense! By decreasing the amount of lawn we feature in garden and landscape design, we can not only reduce fumes from gasoline-powered lawn mowers, but we can also reduce water useage from irrigating those lawns, and increase the native butterfly and bee populations too.
Less Symmetry & More Natural
In planting trends in landscaping, it is likely people will choose to move closer to nature and away from the more regimented, formal and symmetrical landscaping architecture. Once again there are environmental concerns – more natural planting and design simply uses less energy, in build and in upkeep, and native and natural plants are more likely to attract the right wildlife and insect life to the landscape around it.
Less Grasses & More Shrubs
The trend for prairie planting has lasted for a good decade, and many landscaping architects and landscape designers have experimented with grasses in their planting design, sometimes successfully, and sometimes – in smaller suburban spaces – with less successful results. It is likely that over the next year or so landscape designers will rediscover the joy of planting more scented, structural and flowering shrubs.
The Growth of Organic Gardening
Real organic gardening plays to the current trends for recycling and self-sufficiency (not just a refusal to use chemical weedkillers!). The belief that we no longer need to be dependent on huge multinational corporations is encouraging a more savvy awareness of our own efforts at organic living, ‘growing your own’ and home sourcing. And these trends are reaching into landscaping too – with a return to old fashioned values and an innate respect of the ‘natural’ organic flow of landscapes – cleaner, calmer, more free flowing.
Topiary
Despite the likely trend towards returning to more natural planting, it is likely too that topiary will see resurgence in our landscape gardens and landscape design. After all, it is one design feature that is free to create! It may even be viewed as an ‘organic’ way of controlling and cultivating our landscape.
Growing Your Own
There is no doubt, grow your own is just getting bigger and bigger. As more young gardeners and young families are enthused by growing their own food, queues for the UK’s allotments are still on the increase. And grow your own isn’t just about fruit and veg any more, keen gardeners are looking at growing grapes for wine and even keeping bees for honey (and growing plants for those bees to feed on too!). Community gardens are very much on the rise too – a factor that will become increasingly important to those landscape architects and landscaping designers working in the public sector.
Vertical Gardening
Expect to see more roof gardens in 2012 and 2013, and specifically more vegetable roof gardens. There will undoubtedly be an increase in urban agriculture projects in the UK – roof garden projects are already on the increase in some US cities including New York and Chicago (where green rooftops have become a common feature of landscaping). In fact, Chicago City Hall rooftop garden was designed to test the cooling effects of this kind of landscaping design, as well as being an experiment in how rooftop gardens can support plants, birds and insects in a city. London’s rooftops are set for transformation!
And finally, to conclude, there is no doubt that we need to look to other countries and other cultures in our landscaping design and landscape architecture. Not so much to move away from our native planting and natural looking gardens (we have already established they are here to stay), but more to share knowledge and best practice with other landscaping professionals. Knowledge sharing in horticulture, in design, in landscaping, in garden design and landscape architecture is incredibly valuable. Experiment and research, don’t sit on your gardening laurels!
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