The Death of The Gardenesque Motif in Rural American Prestige Landscapes, 1990-2020
This could make a masters thesis for some bright young thing studying landscape architecture - but you're not going to get that. You're going to get the ramblings of an angry old man!
My title is a spin on this somewhat well known text: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674198708
I have now become aware of two large rural properties west of DC, developed in roughly the last 10 years, by highly successful older folks who intend them to be family legacies. Here's what I find striking: in spite of both of these parties obviously being in the 'more money than G-d' category, neither of them did anything to dress up the properties in the manner of what I'd call 'high ornamental horticulture'. I'm not at all advising people be a crazy plant collector like me...but when you have vast holdings around your domicile, of well over 20 acres...the *least* you could do is plant some tree for your offspring and your offspring's offspring to enjoy, like a southern magnolia, cedar of lebanon, etc. I've only actually been at one of the properties, but I can see recent aerial imaging of another...and the vibe of both is strikingly similar. They both spent big money on things in the 'hardscaping' category: elaborate patios or pools. And I completely understand not having trees near a pool. But again, there just seems to be absolutely no interest in things these estates used to feature like: allee plantings along the long driveways, formal garden plantings of any kind, woodland dells, prestige ornamental trees, etc. etc. Both have a couple small perfunctory beds of what are probably perennials on the sides of the rear hardscapes. One caveat is they are both 'horse people', and maybe horse people have never been into this things, although I'm myself vaguely aware of some exceptions. For completeness: at the property I visited, although, yes, they retained a couple old trees near the house they renovated, the only new ornamental trees or large shrubs planted anywhere were a couple ugly silver or red maples, in the middle of a horse paddock, protected by those fences people put up to keep the horses from eating them. A totally generic "I want a tree in the middle of this paddock", so they plopped down what I'd call a Walmart tree. No dogwoods. No flowering cherries. Nada. There are woodlands beyond that paddocks that presumably have the standard Virginia native angiosperms like dogwood or redbud.
For contrast, I will again mention (as I did years ago, but probably 'fell off the end' of gardenweb) that in my teen years I landscaped for a couple who owned the original property my Northern Virginia tract home was subdivided from. They kept several acres for themselves. He was a West Point grad who was in WWII and left the Army when his commission finished, then having a (probably) lucrative career in consulting in DC. (actually, I seem to remember he had a law degree...doesn't matter. He was financially comfortable enough to buy about 100 acres) When he bought the property, I'm guessing in the mid-late 1950s, he at once took to creating gardens. And this was sorta the norm at the time - I know of other properties like this. He had a cherry orchard - I used to help him pick them, going up a ladder while he held it. He had a formal square boxwood garden with cottage garden flowers his wife tended, like foxgloves. He had a holly hedge to screen our new houses from his. When he learned of my interest in plants he delighted in telling me his horse chestnut tree, proudly planted in the front yard, was grown from a conker he picked up on the Champs Elysees. (They had a barn and used to have horses, but their kids were all grown up by the time I came along so didn't currently have any. I think the horses used to roam the lands that became our development. Still, they didn't have the 'horse people' vibe, at least as much as the two I'm talking about.)
I think one thing that's happened is the way the 'landscape architecture-wholesale nursery-industrial complex' pushed trees and plantings for so many decades, people got a bad taste in their mouths from *over* landscaped suburban properties, and this is kind of a reaction to that, of thinking "trees just end up being too much hassle, why would I plant any?". In particular I can trace one of these families back to their former residence closer to DC. When I view it on street view now, I see the typical, 'too many trees smooshed up against the house' nonsense...even though it had plenty of room for them elsewhere - it was on 5 acres!
So I wonder if other people have a sense of this going on in their neck of the woods. I'll tell you where it's not a problem: the UK. I can't remember the details but in the past decade or so, I remember reading of a Marchioness up north who created an entirely new, huge landscape garden, spending millions of pounds. I've grown tired of following "social media" (really should be called anti-social media, but I digress...) , but all the way back to the days of flickr, and now on instagram et al, I'm aware that British people of a variety of ages and socio-economic backgrounds are busy creating de novo gardens of all sizes, even though the focus of this article is people with money. The example most famous, of course, is probably (now) King Charles, and his beloved Highgrove. The stodgy permanence of English society and culture has its good side and its bad side, but this is surely on the good side.
Last caveat is - I hate to say this, but both of these parties are relatively new money. But I don't think that actually should, or does, matter - the Army General and his wife came from hard scrabbled, midwestern farm backgrounds to the best of my knowledge. They just knew enough about history and about the world to know how ornamental gardens can and do, enhance the aesthetic value of houses. (might as well say their property and all its gardens are, of course, totally gone now, destroyed for in-fill development)
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