There's a reason why ins & outs of landscaping are changing faster than ever There's a reason why ins & outs of landscaping are changing faster than ever
By Dan Vierria The Sacramento Bee

Is your garden more Liberace than 50 Cent? More 8-track than iPod, tuna casserole than wild salmon?

Garden trends, which used to change every decade or so, now mutate season to season. The Victorian gazing ball you carefully positioned in the English garden a year ago may be as outdated as last year's computer.

"Garden trends are like fashion, everything comes and goes," says Susan McCoy, president of Garden Media Group, a Pennsylvaniabased marketing and public relations firm. "With the Internet things are just getting a lot faster."

The Internet, marketing and public relations firms, newspapers, magazines and TV home and garden programs are stimulating the growth rate of garden trends.

McCoy says traditionally a garden trend (hot colors, etc.) begins in the fashion world, then lapses into a home trend in about three years. From a home trend, it then trickles down to the garden. The elapsed time between origin and trickle-down is much shorter these days.

Internet message boards instantly spread word of musthave plants, and gardening Web sites are quick to report new products, plants and styles. Landscape make-over shows on TV are not averse to announcing that privet hedges and red rock mulch are as cool as a pocket protector. Newspapers and gardening magazines now are much more willing to print trend stories.

Photo by Owen Brewer / The Sacramento Bee Some garden trends have become classics such as the use of wooden boccie balls that are decoratively colored and scribed to be identified while being played upon the game's cour t surface which is normally made of a powdered egg shell.

For the past few years, Garden Media Group has released a highly publicized gardening trend report. Information is gathered from clients and research in this country and abroad, according to McCoy.

"There's a whole outdoor living trend," she says. "If it has a verb in it, you can do it outside - exercising, cooking, dining, entertaining and now working in the outdoor office. If we can do it outside, we're outside."

The "outdoor room" has transcended trend status and inspired a multitude of garden trends the past few years. Simply, an outdoor room is any extension of indoor living space - except it's outdoors. Patios, decks, courtyards, any defined outdoor space can become a "room," where complete kitchens, fireplaces, furniture arrangements, even beds reside among plant life.

Photo by Owen Brewer / The Sacramento Bee Turned glazed pots provide color and low maintenance for landscaping decor.

"This summer, I've had five or six clients putting plasma TVs outside," says Sacramento landscape architect David Gibson.

Gibson says his clients want to spend more time outdoors, so they're putting money, energy and interests into their landscapes. Some, he says, are forgoing buying vacation homes and instead are investing in resort-style backyards.

"People travel and see beautiful resorts," says Gibson. "They may go to the Napa Valley and say, 'Why can't we have that at home?' "

One of the biggest problems to creating modern, trendy garden can be finding quality contractors, Gibson says.

"You have to get in line and wait five or six months," he laments. "That's been the challenge in many locales."

Nationally, two main ingredients fuel many trends, according to McCoy - color and low maintenance.

Photo by Kim D. Johnson / The Sacramento Bee Horseshoes are another decorative trend along with a popular garden sport.

"People simply want color, color, color," she says. "It could be colorful berries, stems, flowers or foliage. And low maintenance. But it also has to be a great product and one the consumer says, 'I want to have this.' "

Total agreement on the latest garden trends is wishful thinking. One landscape designer may champion native plants, while another might sniff that natives aren't fit for gas station planters. The kidney-shaped swimming pool is considered a relic by many designers, but others deem it perfectly acceptable for the retro garden.

Like a black party dress, a handful of classics are immune from falling out of fashion. Roses, hydrangeas and petunias are among the ever-popular plant choices, although trailing petunias, repeat-blooming hydrangeas and shrub or floribunda roses now are "in" over other forms and classifications of these plants.

Even among the timeless classics, some are more Liberace than 50 Cent.