eschanen's Profile

I don't buy it. This may be the case in large cities (where I believe it is more difficult for anyone to garden because of lack of traditional gardening space, etc.) but this does not jive with what I'm seeing at all. I too am a Gen X gardener who got started gardening in college and have been since. All but one of my friends is a gardener in some respect, and these are childhood friends, not people I met through gardening. At our master gardener plant sale we sell 11,000 plants in three hours to about 1,500 to 2,000 people, half of which I would estimate to be Gen X'ers or Gen Y'ers. I think what is happening is that younger gardeners have many other things to keep them busy (kids, full-time jobs, other hobbies, friends), so the amount of time they dedicate to gardening may be less than what some may perceive to be the "average" gardeners, but they are gardeners (who spend money on plants) just the same.

Thanks for the nice comments on the changes. There are really two separate projects shown in the photos above. First we did a fairly extensive remodel of our 1938 cottage (we essentially pulled off the top and put it back on higher to get more useable space) and added the deck. After that, I completely redid that side of the yard, which had obviously sustained a good deal of damage in the renovation. Prior to the renovation there was garden that just wrapped around the patio (you can see it in the first picture, the orange snow fencing was protecting a Japanese maple). I added the path to the detached garage (before we just wore a hole through the grass walking out there), tiered beds with stacked stone walls on either side as well as gardens along the path.

Fine Gardening is my favorite by far. Last time I looked Garden Design was more of a "look but don't touch" kind of feel. Beautiful lanscapes to be inspired by but don't try this at home. Fine Gardening is full of great how-tos and inspiration.