Healthy food, a natural serenity and meaningful family time are luring more members of Generation Y, which is sometimes known as the Me Generation, into the garden.

More and more, those in their late 20s and early 30s are taking up their grandparents’ hobby of growing flowers and raising vegetables in the backyard.

Lauren Werner, 28, says she watched her grandfather garden, but she didn’t get serious about planting until she had children. “We wanted to know what we are feeding our baby,” she says. And the couple “wanted to clean up our eating habits.”

She and her husband, Bill, 27, have three narrow 8-foot beds and a small planter in their front yard in southern Dallas. They grow herbs and a variety of vegetables, including potatoes, chard and tomatoes.

This is the third year for her front garden and her first really successful year, she says. Keeping up with the kids meant it could be hard to weed and water with consistency. Now that they are older and able to help, it’s easier to tend to garden chores regularly.

“My husband took his third full salad to work today,” Werner says.

While she expected to get great vegetables, she notes other benefits.

“I can be having the worst day on the planet, and it’s immediately soothing,” she says. “It surprised me.”

Her children, Felicity, 3, and Heidi, 2, love being outside with her, Werner says.

She recounts a visit last year to a garden center with Felicity, then 2, where her daughter chattered about the plants. “I sort of thought, she’s 2 and knows what’s going on” from her parents’ conversations around the house. Werner decided to learn more about gardening to keep teaching the kids. 

She says quite a few of her friends also garden. Kristen Holland Shear is one of those friends.

Like Werner, she gardened as a child but couldn’t plant much when she lived in an apartment. When she and her husband, Mark, bought their house in Richardson, they planted a garden.

Part of it was a desire for fresh, safe food. “It’s hard to compare with picking it out of the ground,” Shear says.

Much of their backyard is planted with food crops. Vegetables include Brussels sprouts, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, corn and okra. “We pickled a ton of okra last year,” she says with a laugh. They can leftovers and eat them through the off-season.

Their two daughters, Cora, 3 and Savena, 6, (she’s pregnant with their third child) are a big motivator. “Especially with the girls, we want them to know that food doesn’t just appear in the grocery store,” Shear says.

It also teaches them about the life cycle and gives them opportunities to play in the dirt.

There’s no problem getting the girls to eat their vegetables. “They love vegetables. They just go outside and pick stuff and eat it.”

“More and more, people in my age group do garden,” says Shear, 34. “We swap stories. ‘How do you grow …?’”

There are few statistics on how many Generation Y members are gardening. Most accounts are anecdotal. A survey sponsored by the Garden Writers Association, a North American trade organization of garden communicators and affiliate manufacturers, retailers, growers and marketers, found that in 2012 about 28 percent of gardeners were 18 to 34 years old. In comparison, 35 percent were 55 or older.

Bonnaroo, a riotous music and arts festival held annually in Tennessee, produced informal data: Ninety percent of attendees questioned in 2010 said they were gardeners.

“It’s not your grandfather’s garden club anymore,” says Rick Pappas. He directs plant purchases in the Southwest for Home Depot.

He says Generation Y shoppers look for herbs and vegetables. “They are growing them in apartments and even in dorm rooms,” he says.

Most are interested in organic gardening and avoiding pesticides. Consequently, the store has doubled the number of organic soils it carries and has added other organic products, Pappas says.

In addition to those who want to grow their own food, more of Gen Y is interested in easy decorating with ornamentals. Home Depot has changed some of its offerings to appeal to those who want easy landscaping, Pappas says.

They offer drop-and-bloom options — plants with the same growing requirements in a single pot. The whole planter can be dropped into a decorative container for instant impact, he says. Or the individual plants can be put in a traditional bed.

Hanging baskets are becoming more decorative, too. Plastic white, black or green nursery pots have been replaced by heavier versions in gray or black with an attached saucer. These can go straight to the porch or balcony.

The retailer also is playing into Gen Y’s immersion in technology, offering an extensive website.

Nancy Nance, a vice president of the Dallas County Master Gardener Association, says her group is seeing a younger crowd at events.

“Earth Day, home and garden shows — we are definitely getting a lot more young people attending those events. They are really hungry for news,” she says.

Online resources

Generation Y gardeners, those in their mid-20s to mid-30s, naturally turn to the Internet for ideas and advice. Here’s a brief list of resources.

Garden.org — Information and videos from the National Gardening Association.

Kidsgardening.org — Ideas for helping children learn to garden and information about school garden grants.

Pallensmith.com/articles/10-great-garden-blogs — List of favorite gardening blogs by gardening guru P. Allen Smith.

Pinterest.com/natlgardenassn/ — Ideas for the yard and garden.

Pinterest.com/bhg/gorgeous-garden-plants/ — Pictures of pretty plants for your garden.

Gardenclub.homedepot.com — Site from Home Depot has advice and videos.

Lowes.com — Information for yard and garden.

I am writing this blog on the building site for the Ecover garden at this year’s RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. I am a newbie to the show garden world having built my first conceptual garden at the show last year. It is fair to say it was the most nerve-wracking, time consuming, but exciting experience of my life to date. I promised my partner and family I wouldn’t do it again this year but here I am. Addicted!

So, back to the building site. Behind me as I write is the classical backdrop of the palace and its magnificent gardens. In front of me the Ecover garden is taking shape, providing a striking contrast with contemporary shapes, vibrant colours and lots of smooth, curvaceous, tactile recycled plastic. Having never worked with this material before in the garden it has been a great adventure and something I am now eager to shout about.

The central theme to the the Ecover garden is the fundamental principle that ‘water is life’. We all depend upon our watery environments, but they are under threat from pollution such as waste plastic. When I did my initial research into the problems facing our waterways I was shocked by some of the statistics. Research from the Marine Conservation Society reveals that plastic debris accounts for almost 60 per cent of all litter found on UK beaches, and the UN Environmental Programme estimates that more than one million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals die every year from ingesting plastic debris.

I have taken inspiration from Ecover’s pioneering spirit as a champion of sustainability. I wanted to design a garden that was about solutions to these problems and how the products and materials we buy and use can provide a way to make a sustainable lifestyle an easy option.

Recycled plastics are the centrepiece of the garden and we are hoping to put this material in the spotlight. However, they are only part of Ecover’s packaging innovation story along with other sustainable plastics such as Ecover’s 100% renewable ‘plantastic’ made from sugar cane and ocean plastics made from recovered waste plastic floating in our seas.

I have used recycled plastic in both sculptural and functional ways in the garden. They form benches, lampshades and edging, but also fun visual elements such as a fountain, pools and sculptural waves that crash over the walls and through the planting which has been chosen to reflect the colours and movement of water.

The overall effect I am hoping to achieve is of dynamism and energy showing recycled plastic as a visually attractive and versatile material. The message is that using sustainable sources of plastic is not only beautiful and in harmony with the environment but also aids its recovery.

Recycled and sustainable materials are not a new proposition, but I do feel the perception of them and their potential uses has been slightly worthy, functional and perhaps a little uninspired. I believe it’s time to show them in a vibrant, exciting light making people aware of their use in Ecover’s packaging and encouraging them to think about other potential uses in the home and garden.

This project has really been an eye opener for me and I’ve been really inspired by Ecover’s ethos towards sustainability. I’ve realised that there are some really simple things I myself can do to be more sustainable both at home and as a designer. Here are a few ideas you too might want to try:

• When planning a new garden look for ways to re-use and recycle existing hard landscaping rather than filling a giant skip.
• Plant drought resistant plants and mulch your beds to retain water in the soil during the summer.
• Collect rainwater from your home drainpipes and why not make a water feature of it at the same time.
• When buying new things for the garden such as a new table and chairs see whether there is an alternative made from reclaimed or recycled materials…they often have so much more character.

Hope to see you at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower show from July 9th -14th.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/hamptoncourt
http://www.ecover.com

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Foreclosure rates are down and new home sales are up in Wilmington, N.C. as of June 25, according to WWAY News Channel 3. And that has some individuals considering creating a dream landscape rather than buying a home or selling their properties. That dream team would be John and Marsha Warren in Highlands, N.C. and Hugh and Mary Palmer Dargan in Cashiers, if the homeowner likes mountain chic designs.

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John Warren knows all about creating a mountain design landscape that mimics nature while also providing for homeowners’ relaxation pleasure. And he can be heard during this recent 2013 Cashiers Vimeo lecture discussing just how he came to learn about such designs. But the well-respected contractor’s work at several homes in the North Carolina community really speak for themselves.

In fact, landscape design students traveled as far away as California to see what he and the Dargans accomplished on several Cashiers properties together.

Warren said in his June lecture that he let nature and farmers guide his education in perfecting the landscapes he creates, rather than pursuing a more formal route. And the slideshow of photos above attest to him taking the right path in that regard.

I’ve been landscaping in this area for about 32, 33 years. I started very small, just doing maintenance for William McKee at High Hampton,” the sought-after contractor said.

And his business grew from that initial beginning, and he believes that it was due to his developing his own style, one which was influenced by nature and the men who tend her.

I started just watching nature, how the streams flowed and the types of rock, and the mosses and the trees and the colors of nature. And I would follow the design concepts, not of landscapers, but of farmers. How they terraced the land; how they worked the soil.”

One home in particular on the garden tour of the Dargans’ recent June design workshop class exemplifies how well Warren has mastered his craft. The home sits high atop a western Carolina mountain, yet the surrounding backyard landscape has been sculpted down by Warren–from mounds of dirt to intricate and spacious terraces–to wind masterfully around the side of the property and into a backyard that seems to go on forever.

Warren worked with Andrew Mullins of the Dargan Landscape Architects team for this particular project. And the two men created a dream landscape for the new home owners together, taking care to include just enough stone, wood and plant combinations to blend in with the natural woods around the property.

Mullins, a graduate of the University of Georgia, brought his own unique skills to the table in the project, which include expertise in plant material analysis preparation and plot layout experience, in addition to his architectural knowledge and acumen.

During the Dargans’ recent 2013 Cashiers design workshop and garden tour, Mullins sat down with the Atlanta Pop Culture Examiner to pose for photos of his and Warren’s accomplishment. And to express his satisfaction with the project’s end results. And both men enjoyed seeing garden tour participants intrigued by the landscape utopia they created together.

To contact John Warren or Andrew Mullins for a quote on creating a mountain retreat for your family, visit their company’s Facebook pages or LinkedIn site for more information.

© Radell Smith