A Call to Shovels! In Search of the Gen-X Garden

July 26, 2010


A guest post by Scott Calhoun
Over the past year, I’ve been traveling around the interior West, speaking to gardening groups, and as I scan my audiences, I’ve become worried that the demographics of gardening do not bode well for the future of America’s favorite pastime. I consider myself a passionate garden designer with a progressive approach aimed squarely at youthful thinkers, but at many engagements, I look around a room and find that, at a not-so-young 39, I’m the youngest person in the room. One could conclude that my material is not compelling to young gardeners; but when attending lectures delivered by better known and more charismatic gardening evangelists than myself, I encounter the same issue.
My generation is dropping the trowel. The paucity of youth at gardening events leads me to believe we are the entitled, lazy, sitcom addicts from broken homes clinging to the apron strings of the baby boomers that the media says we are—at least when it comes to gardening. We are spoiled string-cheese-eating kids who are scared to get our fingers dirty. We have ignored our elders and thumbed our noses at the great gardeners who would be our mentors; I’m beginning to wonder what will become of the gardening world after the boomers are gone.

Totem pole cactus and Mexican gold poppy against ‘Ripe Pear’ windowsill
As a garden designer and garden writer in the Southwest, an area with lots of retiree inflow, I sometimes feel as though my work consists of separating the so-called greatest generation from their last gardening dollars. Just like the Eternal Lawns Cemetery, my slogan could be, “I can design your final garden.” These gardens, while lucrative for me, often lack a certain vigor, and well . . . youth, because of restrictions imposed by aging clients and tyrannical homeowners associations that control everything from what species of plants you can plant to what color you can paint your walls. Gardens built with too many freedoms curtailed often fall short of artistry.
I’ve come to think that many of the great gardeners of the greatest generation didn’t move to Arizona or Florida. They weren’t looking for an easier lifestyle. Their retirement consisted of working the land to the end. My grandfather, Richard Graehl, was a case in point; he gardened right up until the end of his life. His retirement resulted in a masterfully planted five acres of corn, squash, berries, and alfalfa that kept him occupied in all but the coldest months when the soil was unworkable. Like many of his generation, gardening for Grandpa was a food production activity and ornamental gardening was purely recreation—one that he had precious little time for.
The boomers, on the other hand, know how to recreate; if you asked them, they would likely tell you that their generation invented recreation. When it comes to gardening, they are all about ornamentation. Sure, they buy organic veggies, but grow their own food? Please! Boomers wedge gardening between shiatsu massages and new age shaman consultations. Not only do they have amusing stories to tell about their counterculture days, they have money, like plants, and are not afraid to buck the status quo a little. One of best things about working with them is that they are open to new ideas. With boomers, gardening is moving forward, but what about us? What about Generation X?
Our slacker generation, Gen X uses the converse argument: “Because we don’t have any free time, we don’t want to spend much of it gardening.” Yes, time is a problem. We are working more hours than our parents did; we have kids; we live in generic suburbs. I understand all this, but come on, people. Can’t we muster a few creative gardens? Are we so removed from our agricultural roots that we’re nonplussed by the green side of the world? Doesn’t the constant buzz of technology make us want to stick our hands, and maybe our heads, in some compost?
I think ours is the best-equipped generation ever to do bold things in our gardens. After all, we are a generation that embraces change. We invented punk music, video games, and computers. We took junior high typing classes using manual typewriters only to move wholesale to computers in college. We supported the move from vinyl to compact disc and from CD to mp3. We moved from film to digital cameras and from handwriting to email. We rarely complained or made a fuss—we just changed.

Turquoise wall and Indian fig cactus in Tucson’s Barrio Historico
We were also raised in a more design-conscious world. Crate & Barrel and IKEA catalogs became our favorite bathroom reading. We don’t see style as a luxury, but as an essential part of who we are. Although we have largely given up status symbols like clothing embroidered with the Ralph Lauren polo horse, do not be deceived; we care a lot about what we wear and how we arrange our homes for living. Extending this proclivity to the outdoors doesn’t feel like that much of a stretch to me.
Like gifted children who are bored with everything, we have the skills but are slow to apply ourselves. I think this is mainly because we’re turned off by the old ways of gardening (i.e. gigantic lawns, excessive water use, chemical bombardment, and fussy plants). To me, the traditional American way of gardening seems silly and wasteful and generally out of place; I surmise that other Xer’s must feel the same way. So, while recognizing that there are many ways to get the young interested in gardening, I have a simple—and practically foolproof—recipe to follow. It’s a simple binary formula: bold colors and wild plants equal rock-and-roll gardens. World-renowned landscape architect Steve Martino boils down the genius of his work with bright colored walls and native plants to this same formula: “walls and weeds.” Walls and weeds are a remedy for blandness and a call to action among my slacking peers who seem to be fixated on Victoria’s Secret commercials, Seinfeld reruns, and eBay auctions. Snap out of it! Let’s get painting and planting!
Bold Color
Color powers and enlivens gardens. I’m not talking about the petunias and pansies that are sometimes referred to as “color;” I mean paint. Big architectural plants, which form the backbone of exciting gardens, need a stage or backdrop, and color-drenched walls are often exactly what is required. Colored walls are the garden design equivalent of putting a dancer in a neon pink leotard in front of a black velvet curtain—her silhouette pops out in relief. Young gardeners should be happy to jettison a palette of puritanical pastels for colors that flex their muscle and highlight the structural mettle of Dr. Seuss-style succulent plants.
If you think that color, in the form of paint, is simply window-dressing in a garden, consider the great spiritual and emotional pull of color. The great Russian modernist painter Wassily Kandinsky wrote, “Orange is like a man, convinced of his own powers.” Of red, he wrote, “Red rings inwardly with a determined and powerful intensity. It glows in itself, maturely, and does not distribute its vigor aimlessly.” On the color of the western sky, blue, Kandinsky says that it is the color of profound meaning. Our desert sands and rocks are blood-red, vermillion, and coral tinged with chartreuse lichens, these rocks are our guide to coloring our gardens.

Lupine and desert spoon against a cobalt blue wall
In our gardens, we need to take the color of the sky reflected in a desert stream, the fiery red crown of the Gila woodpecker, the screaming orange of a Mexican gold poppy, and selectively, with an artist’s intentions, paint those colors on a few of our garden walls.
In her book The Anthropology of Turquoise, Ellen Meloy points out that in humans, 70 percent of our brainpower is used for vision. Meloy calls vision “this tyrant of the senses.” Put a weak color in a garden and watch it recede to the blandness. Already largely oblivious to continental gardening traditions, young gardeners need to flex their color muscles, and they can do it with painted walls.
For a while, I considered the use of bold color on garden walls part of the desert garden design bag of tricks, but lately I’m more and more convinced that this will work anywhere. At the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens in Sonoma County, California, acclaimed garden designer Topher Delaney has constructed a garden consisting of a gravel-filled courtyard planted with white-trunked sycamore trees. As a backdrop for the trees, she uses a giant curtain of blue.
After looking at Delaney’s exhibit, I began to think about eastern gardeners planting white birch and witch alder and yellow-twig dogwood against blue walls. Or perhaps spicebush or a pagoda dogwood tree sidled up to turquoise seat wall. Adding snow and fall color to the design mix only seemed to increase the impact that a colored wall could have when combined with the spectacular plants of the Eastern deciduous forest. Yes, Martha Stewart devotees might question your taste and call for more subdued tones, but when you explain that you’re carving out a niche for your own previously black-thumbed generation in the gardening world, they are likely to be mollified.
The Martha followers should really be proud of you. Bold color is not an American tradition limited to the Western half of the continent; consider Fletcher Steele’s Blue Steps at Naumkeag in Massachusetts, which combine cobalt blue and paper birches in a way that can only be described as daring.

Snow pole cactus against terra cotta wall at Tohono Chul Park’s Desert Living Courtyard
Wild Plants Equal Wildly Fun Gardens
Gen-Xers are environmentalists at heart, so lacing up our hiking boots isn’t too much to ask. Some gardeners have a favorite steel shovel, cultivator, or pair of Swiss pruners, but my favorite garden tool is worn on my feet. For young gardeners, hiking boots are one of the best gardening tools. Hiking puts potential slacker gardeners in situ with wild plants. If gardening were more like hiking, or if being in your backyard felt like being out on a hike, more Xers would do it.
One of the best things about hiking and botanizing is observing the natural patterns of how things grow best. If we see coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea) hanging onto a rocky slope in the shade, we just might get the idea that coral bells like a shady well drained spot in the garden. It is this day-to-day association with wild plants that engenders respect for them, and hiking through a forest or desert is a fine and pleasurable way to make that acquaintance. It works like this: view the natural world, note it, photograph it, adapt it to your garden, find it at a nursery, buy it, and plant it.
Thankfully, the nursery industry has come around to the idea of growing and selling native and drought-tolerant plants that can make even the most self-righteous Whole Foods-shopping, Prius-driving, Sierra Clubbing Xer feel like gardening is a guilt-free activity.
Many of the wild plants, especially in the Southwest, are so iconographic and bold that they are more like sculpture than flora. This appeals to our contemporary design and IKEA catalog sensibilities: edited, clean, modern, sculptural. Using bold plants is a great way for Xers to sweep out the clutter of and reinvent our gardening selves. Why not start with plants? In my desert region, the ocotillo, the saguaro, the prickly pear, cholla and yucca can be arranged to preside over a desert garden without sucking out groundwater at an unsustainable rate.

Purple walled garden at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
In cooler and wetter climes, many bold plants can easily be incorporated into gardens. I know a Massachusetts gardener who overwinters a bevy of agaves in a south-facing window just to enjoy their spiky personalities outside in the warm months. Even planted outside and in the ground, there are cold hardy prickly pear cactus and yucca plants that will thrive in nearly every condition.
Even for those who recoil at the idea of plants with stickers, there is plenty of pizzazz to be found in the world of ornamental grasses and spiky perennials. Slackers can create a tour de force by combining plants like gayfeather and blue oat grass, purple prairie clover and blue grama, firecracker penstemon and deer grass. Ornamental grasses are the new gardening wave that Xers should be riding.
If Gen-Xers are at all interested in making art of their gardens, and I believe that they are, there is no better place to start than with underused American plants. When choosing plants for youthful gardens, we would be wise to take Ezra Pound’s advice to young artists and “make the world strange.”
Instead of piercing and tattooing so many of our body parts to get attention, why not just grow some strange plants against big colored walls. Put a big Medusa’s head euphorbia (Euphorbia esculenta) out on the porch and you’re sure to at least get a few “that’s interesting” type comments from your neighbors. If the Medusa’s head isn’t strange enough, you could go with the curiosity plant.

Nolina and palo blanco against a pink and purple wall at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
My New Gen-X Garden
As you can see, I’m ready to create these gardens, I’m just waiting for the right Gen-X clients to ring, email, or scream. Since the only voice screaming for this sort of garden seems to be me, I’ve decided to do the sensible thing and listen to the voices in my head.
I’ve been designing a new garden in a courtyard outside my office, and in it I hope to marry plants and paint to create spaces of tranquility and clarity and a little Gen-X attitude. Designing a garden for yourself rather than someone else is a sublime pleasure and something I believe that most people are capable of; all it takes is a willingness to make spectacular mistakes. In this respect, I am brimming with talent, as are many of my contemporaries.
This new garden is based on the color blue. I’ve been studying the gardens at Majorelle in Morocco, the blue walls of Steve Martino and Carrie Nimmer, and a blue walled courtyard garden at the Antique Rose Emporium in San Antonio, Texas, where owner Mike Shoup combined yuccas with blue paint to excellent effect. Frida Khalo’s garden, at least as presented in the film Frida, has also caught my eye. I’m seeing and thinking blue. Again, Ellen Maloy’s book, The Anthropology of Turquoise, has piqued my imagination and caused me to consider the combination of rock and sky, and of rock the color of sky (turquoise).
I drew my garden on paper. The perimeter of the garden is defined by a wall of corrugated steel, painted blue, its channels running horizontally. Against this backdrop, I’ll plant large silver-beaked yuccas and a desert museum palo verde tree, whose yellow blossoms would stand out like stars against the blue fence. The shape of the space, two rectangles, would be separated by a low ocotillo fence, making two distinct rooms. Like a Persian garden, a small central fountain would be centrally located. The fountain would consist of a sunken steel box with a bubbling urn sitting atop two salvaged steel storm grates. In an L-shape around the fountain, a flagstone bench and pedestals define the space. In various spots around the garden, I’ll place recycled blue and green steel drums that I poked holes in using the pointed end of a 17-pound digging bar. In these drums, I plan on locating bold desert specialties like ocotillos, elephant trees, and agaves.
A Call to Shovels
My admonition to my fellow Xers is this: put down the high-fructose, corn syrup-based drink in your hand and the Xbox remote control, and go out into your backyard. Look at it with new eyes: think about how you might make your yard a reflection of your fast-paced, highly designed, and highly interesting life. Get out there and start painting and planting. Let’s show the boomers how it’s done: grow a vine on a trellis of rusted bed springs; make a bullet-riddled propane tank a sculpture, and plant a white-trunked tree against a wall the color of deep water—like a snowy egret in a pool of cobalt glass.
________________________________________
My thanks to Scott Calhoun for permission to repost his article and photos, which first appeared on Terrain.org, No. 18: Spring/Summer 2006, where his bio explained that Scott “gets much of his design inspiration from badlands and taco stands, a style which Sunset magazine dubbed ‘Taqueria Chic.'” The author of several books, including the award-winning Yard Full of Sun: The Story of a Gardener’s Obsession that Got a Little Out of Hand, he also lectures and designs gardens in Tucson, Arizona. You can find him online at Scott Calhoun’s Desert.
I’ve been following Scott’s work since reading Yard Full of Sun, which made a big impression on me for its embrace of challenging gardening conditions, native plants, sustainable gardening, and general outlook on life. I’ve reviewed some of his other books, including The Hot Garden and Designer Plant Combinations, here at Digging. I’m currently reading Chasing Wildflowers and hope that Texas’ spring wildflower show and fish tacos will one day lure Scott back to Austin so that I can meet him. —Pam
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

0 responses to “A Call to Shovels! In Search of the Gen-X Garden”

  1. Jo Ferrer says:

    Maybe the younger generation is closet gardening. I am. I am from Brooklyn NY and live in Houston. I grew up with a few dead plants on my fire escape, I am 29 and this year I redid my backyard and taught myself how to not kill a plant. I have found a few others my age are trying the same thing. Even in Brooklyn.

  2. Your premise is faulty, Scott, because you’re basing your information on the age of those who attend gardening lectures. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many gen-xers who want to sit in yet another lecture on any subject, let alone gardenig. I am 35 and I love to garden (and blog about my garden), but I have never sat in a lecture about gardening and doubt I ever will. I’ve been urged to join my local garden club, but with meetings on Thursdays mid-day once a month, it’s highly unlikely that I’d be able to duck out of work often enough to make it worthwhile. I think that’s probably the case for many people my age and that’s why you don’t see us in the clubs or at club events.

  3. Sheila says:

    I don’t think you have to worry about gardening dying out. When I was young I gardened, but I certainly didn’t have time to go to meetings and lectures. I was busy raising and supporting my family. Focusing on gardening is a luxury that comes with age, a shift in responsibilities and priorities. With my own kids (gen-xers) I have found that they certainly weren’t interested in the gardens when they were young, but now that they have their own yards and in some cases, children, they are slowly taking an interest in the joys of gardening.

  4. 27 here, and gardening like crazy. I second Heather’s comments — no, we’re not at your lectures. We’re online! Also worth noting is that gardening is an activity I think most people find later in life — it is hard to start gardening when you are in college, living in apartments, moving often. I find these “Where is the next generation of gardeners?” discussions a bit silly, actually… I think the next generation of gardeners is coming along just fine. Most of them are coming to gardening by way of food, not flowers, but they are gardening just the same.

  5. Pam/Digging says:

    Thanks for the thoughtful comments so far. I agree that gardening often comes later in life, when money and time allow. But what moved me about Scott’s article was his vision for doing bold things in the garden, for taking chances, trying new things, going a little crazy. For shaking off old ideas of what a garden must be or look like. He’s calling for a youthful sense of adventure and style in gardening. Did that resonate with anyone else? —Pam

  6. I agree that we seem to do more gardening, as we get older. I dabbled in it, when I was raising children. But, not near as much as now. My daughter-in-law, in her 40s, is a avid gardener. My daughter, in her 30s is ‘working at it’. We all drag the kids with us to plant nurseries and garden tours.
    I love the colors and ideas Scott talks about. Painting a wall a bright turquoise just wouldn’t work here, where I live. So, I speak to color with my red umbrella and furniture cushions…cobalt blue pots and Mexican Talavera accessories. It works for me.
    But, oh…..a turquoise wall. That would be SO great.

  7. Lisa at Greenbow says:

    I don’t think your generation is working any more hours than I did when I was your age. I worked two jobs, had two children, cat, dog and a mortgage for many many years. I still had a garden. It ebbed and flowed with time and money constraints. As it turned out my daughter is a gardener and my son is a mower man. Yep he likes to mow. So I think it is either in you or it isn’t. It is a pity that more people young or old don’t become more connected with the soil. I love love love your promotion of more color in the garden.

  8. Walls and weeds….so wonderful in its juxtaposition. I think the gen-xers are coming to gardening from different angles. The food thing is bringing them to the garden, but in a newly defined garden setting. They are also afraid of it. Cut and paste does not work with living things, thus we fear the unknown. I have to remind my lecture attendees that having fun and killing plants goes hand in hand. Relax, lower your expectations and smell your soil.

  9. Loree says:

    Great article! As the others have said I do feel that Scott is a little off on the premise that Gen X’ers are not gardening. I am a Gen X’er as are my friends and a great deal of my blog readers. We are out there digging in the soil and embracing the modern style you describe. Which brings me to your second point. Color! You are spot on with that one. It may have started in the southwest but it’s spreading, even to the gloomy grey PNW. Maybe it’s what we’ve needed up here all along! I do think your lecture attendance may be suffering from your local. If you come to the Yard Garden & Patio show in Portland, or the NW Flower and Garden Show in Seattle I bet you will see a younger crowd. At least I hope so. I’ll be there…and I’ll bring my friends.

  10. You can even expand the idea to: the next generation not only has lost touch with gardening, but scarcely goes outside to play. So many electric gadgets vie for entry into a child’s world. This is a great article and great comments to boot.
    If you want a great book on the subject, read ‘LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS’ by Richard Louv (2006)…byline…’saving our children from Nature-Deficit Disorder’
    The great news: the next generation will LOVE the wonderful interaction found in garden blogs…it’s a rich combination of technology, garden creativity, and nature. My 15 year old reads my garden blog, then goes outside to see what I was talking about. Yeah! 🙂
    David at Tropical Texana

  11. Floridagirl says:

    Well, I am on the older spectrum of Generation X, and I certainly can empathize. The “73-year-old awesome gardener/orchid hobbyist/former Biology teacher/daily jogger who’s missing a kidney” down the street invited me to our local garden club just a few months after we moved here. Even though I couldn’t do my entire garden the first year, I did make bold changes that told everybody this would be no typical suburban lot. Imagine my discomfort when I got to my first meeting and discovered I was the only one under age 60 in the room! I think I was 38 or 39 at the time. I went to a second meeting and later to a luncheon, but eventually decided the generation gap was more than I could bear. Perhaps now that I’ve crept into my 40’s, I might give it another go. I think a couple of things are going on here. It is difficult when one is working long hours and getting home late to think about gardening. I had little time for it myself in my 20’s and 30’s, though I did make feeble attempts. Additionally, I think some people just get life figured out near the end, and gardening is one of those pearls of wisdom they end up with. The GenXers and Baby Boomers who garden in the prime of their life, well, maybe they just wised up earlier than normal. And what of Gen Y and the Millenials? My kids fall in here. I have drug them to nursery after nursery over the years. They have weeded, composted, mulched, planted, trimmed, and chopped. They have chosen their own plants to nurture. And they have failed to become captivated by my passion. Well…although…I do have a 22-year-old who now owns six acres and has set aside one just for gardening. Success! We shall see what becomes of his younger siblings.

  12. cat says:

    I too am completely inspired by his talk of bold colors and unusual design elements. I’m wondering how to incorporate this into the typical suburban austin garden…especially so that the design element looks as though it belongs and doesn’t stand out uncomfortably. Your thoughts?
    In certain parts of Austin I already see this aesthetic taking hold, Cat, particularly south and west Austin. But I think the idea has relevance even for the more traditional, less xeric-focused neighborhoods of central and north Austin. In those neighborhoods I’m thinking of low stucco walls with a colorful tint that set off garden beds or a front patio; a painted corrugated panel made into a gate or a screen; a trio of painted terra-cotta pots on the front porch (Scott shows pictures of this in his book Yard Full of Sun). The key, I think, is to incorporate colorful, bold elements into the whole of a boldly designed garden, rather than plopping one bold thing into a traditional front yard. —Pam

  13. Melissa says:

    The current group of late 20’s to mid 30’s gardeners are raising food, not flowers really. I’m 31 and if I think of my 5 closest friends, only one of them doesn’t have a vegetable garden, but I’m the only one of us who is interested in ornamental gardening. Time is a huge factor and not something we have a ton of so I think most people put their time where it’s going to directly reward not just them but their family as well– growing food. I hope to influence my friends some in the next few years and help them make their yards beautiful along with productive food gardens. And the commenter who said we are on the internet is absolutely right. I read tons of blogs on gardening- growing food and flowers. But having the time to go sit in a seminar, not likely. I mostly steal snippets of time here and there to research my next gardening project. I do know this much about getting more people to garden– if you can get a plant in their hands or a little dirt on them– it’s infectious! Several of my friends are new gardeners this year as a result of some gentle encouragement! 🙂

  14. Alisa says:

    Thanks for the push! I’m trying to become a more active gardener. It is hard work and you have to have the motivation to commit to the time needed to get things set up. I think I will do some weeding tonight!!

  15. Germi says:

    I love what Scott brings up about the bold, rock and roll use of plants – but from where I sit this is a way of planting that has been explored by xeric gardeners for years! He has great things to say, but I agree that he misses the mark a little – I have created gardens for lots of Gen Xers and have MANY young friends who garden. One reason younger people don’t go to garden lectures is because – sorry – they tend to be dull. Good music mixed in with a power point lecture, and a signature drink for a meeting could bring in the throngs! It is all in the presentation, I think… gardening needs to not be seen as Aunt Tillie’s pass time, but as a fun, creative, rad, punk thing to do. Which it IS! GenX IS gardening, they just aren’t going to all the meetings and lectures. They are online – reading blogs. Like DIGGING!!!
    XOXOXOIvette
    Hi, Germi! I love having your take, as always. I hear what you’re saying, but while this bold, rock ‘n roll, xeric style of planting and color may be old hat to gardeners on the West Coast and those who read Sunset Magazine, it is still pretty fresh to my eyes, raised in the southeast and living in a fairly lush part of the southwest. Colored walls, for instance, are uncommon here in Austin, though they’d look great with our big, bold agaves and brightly hued salvias. Scott’s enthusiasm for plants and creating gardens (and gardeners!) is infectious, and that’s what I loved about his article. —Pam

  16. Laura says:

    As a baby boomer and mother of a Gen-Ex daughter, I agree that time is an issue for the Gen-Exers. My daughter and her boyfriend are interested in gardening, but have little time because of a young baby and work.
    I, too, didn’t have the money or the time at their age so I didn’t begin to garden till later in life.
    By the way, as a single older woman who has begun to date, one of the on-line dating tips on the dating site I joined said NOT to write or chat about gardening as most men find it boring. Bummer. 🙁
    Oh, that’s really sad. But maybe you won’t want to meet a man who doesn’t enjoy gardening? —Pam

  17. Bluestem says:

    Maybe a “This is not your grandmother’s garden” campaign is needed? Many people (young and old) do not realize that there are alternatives to the generic suburban landscape and they just follow tradition. Young people are all about being creative and non-conformists. The home landscape could be their opportunity to shine.
    It took me several years of slowly reducing my lawn before I finally decided to go whole hog and create my own prairie. My yard stands out on my street. My neighbors and I may disagree as to why my yard stands out, but we can all agree that it is unique.
    Gardening needs more people to break away from tradition. But, please, do it tastefully.

  18. Tom says:

    I’m 37. I’m in the midst of my first real garden and already planning the next at a new location a couple states South of here. I grow a lot of old fashioned southern plants. I also grow a few that are unique to my area. I’m currently single and live alone. I love gardening. I get in my “place” when I have my hands in dirt.

  19. Amy Grisak says:

    I was just telling a friend of mine the other day how impressed I am with the number of younger (Gen-X age typically) gardeners we have in the community gardens here in Great Falls. I was one of the founding members of River City Harvest a few years ago, and am delighted to see the amount of families with young children who are either gardening for the first time or coming back to it. Keep in mind, this is food production. And, I do agree that the Boomers aren’t as much of the picture. We have some, but I have to say the Gen X’ers are making the bulk of our membership. It’s a good sign because hopefully all of our children will learn to love it from the beginning.

  20. Julie says:

    What a great post. I’m 40, and I would definitely go to a gardening lecture. I’d say the premise is sound that you can tell a lot about the average age of gardeners to see who turns out at gardening evnts. Why go only online to learn everything about gardening (are we all that lame?) when you could meet other gardeners in person, as well as go to actual gardens? Which is what I do. One thing I noticed without fail at the Garden Conservancy tours I go to all summer in the Hudson Valley (NY State)–these showcase gardens are 20+ years in the making, and most of the gardeners are baby boomers. What this means is that they got their start at around our age–they either have no kids, or their kids are all grown up–which seems to be the prime point for taking up gardening.

  21. I’m smack-dab mid-Gen X and not only do I attend several different garden club’s meetings – I’m President of our area’s biggest garden club. Sure, most of the members are twice my age, who cares? They are great people full of gardening wisdom and experience, I consider them our club’s biggest asset! Not joining ’cause no one is your age is ridiculous, do you ONLY have friends in your own narrow age range? Also it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy – you don’t join, no others your age will, hence club has only old-sters and soon dies out – literally. Finally, if you are wanting to socialize with gardeners your age, why not start a NEW club – just put a notice on Craigs LIst, Facebook, the local library and have at it.
    One of the things I love about garden blogging is that it brings in the experiences of people of all ages. When the Austin garden bloggers started meeting, we found we ranged from mid-20s to retirees. It’s wonderful! A love of gardening is our common bond that overcomes any age difference. —Pam

  22. Beth says:

    I’m 33. I’ve been gardening since I was in my early 20s. Then again, I come from a long line of gardeners and grew up helping my mom with all sorts of gardening tasks. I couldn’t imagine NOT gardening 🙂 Most of the gardeners I know who are my age or younger mainly grow veggies and herbs. I don’t find as many gardeners my age who are as interested as I am in ornamental plants. My poor husband will be building a fifth limestone-edged bed for me this fall (I’ve run out of room again!). Thank goodness he seems to enjoy the work. I’m not sure if I’m doing anything as innovative or daring as article suggests, but I enjoy my yard. Though we’re preparing to rip out at least a third of our front lawn so we can replace it with native plants–perhaps that’s daring to my neighbors. I get most of my info from the web and all the fabulous gardening blogs like this one (thank you, Pam!). I also do not have time to attend lectures or club meetings. I wish I did, but I’m juggling work and two small children. Some day, I hope to do the Master Gardener program, but it will have to wait until I have a little more time to myself.

  23. michelle d. says:

    From a landscape designers point of view, most people invest in garden design and installation services when they have attained property. Owning your first home usually comes after years of working and saving, thus the age is between 30 and 40 , depending on the economics of the area that you live in. I couldn’t afford to buy a house in the S.F. Bay area until I was in my early 40’s.
    So I say cut the gen X’ers some slack. They’re working long hours, raising families, playing hard and trying to save some dough to buy into the so called American Dream. They’ll come around when they’re ready, they usually do, especially when the economy is strong.

  24. David C. says:

    I am at the oldest end of Gen X (44), and I think some should cop Scott some slack, too. This is hardly a silly topic. Part of being alive, including horticulture, is being able to appreciate different styles, different deliveries of what art, people or gardens are. Being all things to all people, while retaining one’s individuality. All w/ an understanding of solid design principles and where one’s natural environment really is, of course.
    I think *some* Gen Xers are rather in-tune to that, and the younger Gen-Y perhaps more so, but not all. Nor are all gardeners older than Gen X statist in their garden mindset, either…many made incredible places without the luxury and crutch of automated irrigation, chemicals, etc.
    But it is very true that Gen X and Gen Y are getting back to the need to garden to eat, that my pre-boomer parents’ generation had. That was how I learned on our family garden plot, at an AF Base in Alabama in the late 1970’s. Recently, I hear a few visioning different ways to combine ornamental and food gardens…some day, I hope to see many examples of those. Maybe design some of them, too!
    Instead of saying lectures are boring (the majority I have attended are not), I bet many would benefit from “branching out” and get to know different people and styles (and ages). And draw from their lessons.
    I would also like to see we who are involved in “gardens” start defining and applying some new, innovative means to promote appropriate horticulture that many commentors stated. I have given countless talks, and just reminding people to start with the realities of their climate / soil and what it nourishes is different. My contrasts of good, bad and ugly do the trick for many I have heard from, but incorporating music, media, etc could drive the point to the core, too.
    More effective presentation will take time, $ for the media, and learning how to use that media, but it brings more power to the people and takes it away from gardening’s gate-keepers…and I think we Gen Xers are known for doing just that, as well as others.

  25. It seems I should have chimed in here earlier, but I’ve been sequestered myself from the internet while I’m working on a new book, but I do want to point out two things:
    I wrote this article in 2006. Since then I’ve seen a lot more young people showing up at gardening talks, plant sales and other horticultural events. I’m a lot less worried about Gen X and Y dropping the trowel than I was when this was first printed.
    As some commenters above noted, many young gardeners are focused on growing veggies. My hope is that current veggie garden craze will give way to a more balanced approach. Maybe growing veggies is the gateway drug to better mixed and ornamental gardens. There are a whole host of reasons why ornamental gardens might be better suited to the lifestyles of Xers and Yers. I’ll elaborate more in an upcoming blog post.