Okay here are mine based upon my experience:

Thumbs-up; Red-orange dyed woodchip mulch

Thumbs-down; Asphalt sidewalks

Thumbs-down; Unimaginative soldier row of Arbs. instead of a mixed shrub border

Thumbs-down; water-features as front yard focal points, which usually are not properly maintained

Thumbs-down; dyed concrete pavers

Thumbs-down; Xmas lights left up all year.

Thumbs-down: rows of "meatball shrubs" lining a foundation or a walkway. I HATE those! I've trained my kids to hate those, too.

thumbs-down: grass growing all the way up to the foundation. yuck, can we be any more unimaginative?

thumbs-down: using pointy/spiky plants by the driveway or walkway. Yikes, common sense,people!!

thumbs-down: using too-large plants on street corners so that vision is obscured and you can't see cars coming.

thumbs-up: slightly raising the soil in the bed above the surrounding grass. it shows off the plants much better.

thumbs-up: going for balance instead of symmetry, unless you're going for a very formal layout. it's much more interesting.

Jenny

I'm new to landscaping but do have a few thoughts.

thumbs D- lights lined up like a run-way.

thumbs U- water features in the backyard also starting from a slope with the beginning looking like a natural setting. Whether it is a dry river bed or running river bed.

thumbs D- red crushed stone or wood chips. They are the first things you notice in a garden before you notice the plants.

thumbs-D I hate straight lines in gardens. Use some curves.

thumbs-U I like island beds with a berm and set closer to the house so it isn't floating away.

thumbs-U I love rock gardens and ornamental grasses together. They can be tastefully done.

Thumbs-down: One-offs. Too many different plants with no true connection.

Thumbs-up: Long drifts of the same plant, especially in the front of a house that has most of it's attention from drive by traffic.

Thumbs-down: Having to use one of every foliage color. Hey, I love the red and yellow plants together. Blue and yellow... amazing. Red and blue.. spectacular. Do you have to use red, blue, and yellow with every bed? (oh, I'm figuring green foliage doesn't count because it's a natural)

Thumbs-up: Deciduous! Do I love evergreen? Of course. Do I think having every single plant in the landscape be evergreen looks tired and boring? Yup. Landscapes are rich this time of year with fall color. The winter structure of bare branches, especially freshly coated with snow... unbeatable.

Thumbs-up: Speaking of foliage color, I'm in love with the all green gardens that are full of texture. I think the "green room" garden is especially effective in a shady part of the garden.

I am not imaginative to come up with a long list of my own, but I have one.

Thumbs Down - A garden that is just stuffed full of in-your-face, bloom-all-season, bright pink annuals. Is that really garden design? It sure does not look natural.

"Wide small tree/shrub borders"...I am undecided. I just moved into a house where the back yard is rimmed with a number of deciduous trees. I have been trying to figure out if adding in a couple of evergreen trees along with shrubs and perennials will complete the picture or just create a lawn circled by plants.

"Water features"...I agree with the comments. Either make them look natural or make them look artificial (like a fountain) but don't stick a plastic tub in the middle of your lawn and think that a necklace of rocks will make it look natural.

"Asphalt sidewalks"...winding asphalt paths are all oven in my area and I don't mind them. One community lined theirs with white striped down each side and it looks ridiculous. Like a go-cart track winding along the road.

"balance instead of symmetry"...I like that phrase.

- Brent

thumbs d: trying to fight mother nature--for example, trying to maintain a lawn in shade (this is a case where a no lawn front yard is better than the alternative)

thumbs d: straight rows of hosta, straight rows of anything, unless in a formal garden

thumbs d: garden kitsch, cutesy unnatural arrangements of unnatural things

thumbs u: real rocks wherever they make sense instead of pavers

thumbs u: letting things "escape" their natural boundaries by a bit (plants that disguise hard edges)

thumbs u: making use of what you have

thumbs d: yanking mature plants and throwing them away, rather than considering an alternative use

Thumbs up -- Mulch, mulch, mulch: the number-one thing that can improve the health and vigor of most plants. And no mere afterthought of a quarter-inch, either; 2 to 4 inches is the minimum for a healthy landscape. (But river rocks are not mulch, I have seen them contribute to the death of trees by making the soil too hot or too wet.)

Thumbs down -- Dysfunctional lawns: they suck up obscene amounts of water, labor, and other resources, in return for being nothing more than a foreground for the manse. It's one thing if the lawn gets regular use as a play surface for dogs or kids; but a boring expanse of "look what I have" monoculture that may have made sense in drizzly old England for the landed gentry is an absurd anachronism here in the land of dry summers.

Thumbs up -- Native plants, to suggest a sense of place as well as foster the auditory and kinesthetic dimension of landscapes (birds, butterflies, bees, and other native wildlife).

Thumbs down -- Fussy edges: rectangular hedging and rigid borders in general. In my area, I see too many low boxwood hedges trimmed into boxy borders, or else brick strips between flowerbeds and lawn, each growing edge obsessively hacked back.

Thumbs up -- Secret gardens and the element of surprise. Not seeing everything all at once, but coming around a corner and finding something unexpected. Or happening upon a quiet niche.

Thumbs down -- Hacked-up, poodled, topped, and boxed shrubs and trees. Pruning is an unappreciated and (my eyes tell me) seldom practiced art. Properly pruned shrubs and trees are healthier and more vibrant, live longer, are always attractive, and require less maintenance than ones that are attacked by hacks.

Just remembered one more T-down. During my lunchtime jog through the neighborhood surrounding my office, I noticed something I thought was very odd.

Nearly 20% of the houses did not have a walkway leading to the front door. Typically these doors were of good quality, painted, and had mortared brick landings, but they just lead to the lawn.

The house and landscape architecture not working together caught my attention, so maybe it's a thumbs up for "curb appeal" in a car-wreck sort of way

Thumbs up, lots of places for birds to have shelter and water.
Thumbs down, putting a beautiful but shade loving fern in full scalding sun, just because "it would look good there" (till it dies :( )

Thumbs up: considering a variety of options suitable to the specific situation.
Thumbs down: strict rules about thumbs up or down

Shades of grey are out there.

When I read some of the above ups and downs, I think, "well, it depends..."

Thumbs D - on un-natural ponds and falls, unless they are really formal. Most pictures in garden magazines, and instructions in pond how to books are terrible.

Thumbs D - constant 'instruction' by gardening magazines and shows about how to create a pot of plants. First this is real simple to do, but based on the attention it gets it must be considered extremely difficult. Second, I can't think of a project that creates more work - daily watering.

Thumbs U - on natural prunning. There is far too little done to sculture woody plants, to make them look both better and keep the look natural.

Agreed - the all-annuals approach makes my eye twitch, and here in NE Ohio it means a mulch garden or bare dirt half the year.

Thumbs way, way down: Having an expensive, complicated landscape which the homeowner clearly has no intention of ever trying to understand, much less maintain. Your garden should be a reflection of who you are, not who you can hire.

Thumbs up: Being able to walk or drive past a home and by looking at the landscape you know you want to get to know the gardener better, regardless of whether they've hired a landscape designer.

Thumbs down: Being able to tell that the landscaping addict has talked their neighbors into letting them re-do adjoined yards.

Thumbs up: Zonal Denial, done in moderation. (guilty!)

Thumbs down: Cookie cutter gardens in high ticket neighborhoods. Shame on those Homeowners Associations.

What's wrong with addicts doing their neighbor's yards?

Fine if they give them the kind of garden the neighbor wants.

it's the borrowed landscape!

My moms neighbor began to prune her catalpa. She heard it and came to see what he was doing. He said he thought it was "his" (70 year old tree, hasnt moved any where in a while) now its lopsided, fortunately it will grow out fast. This is the same chump that cut through(Off) the two inch thick vine of a wystiria she had "let go" into one of her trees. She is a master gardener, who knows more than many about the plants in her garden. (He has commited other offenses) The mad pruner is an appartment manager, who doesnt even understand where his yard stops. I think a permit should be issued with loppers, or in this case, a fine issued with the removal of the loppers.

Thumbs up: Removing truly invasive, non-native plants (japanse honeysuckle for instance.)

Thumbs up: Using plants that (once established) can get by (most years) on whatever rain falls.

Thumbs up: Plants that provide food and shelter for birds--and realizing that snakes and hawks gotta eat too. (One of my neighbors asked me if I'd figured out a way to keep the resident hawk from eating the birds who came to my feeders (I've never seen this happen.) Same neighbor was horrified when she learned that Fred the Black Snake had gotten the second round of cardinal nestlings that were in my Rose bush. Nature at it's finest!

Thumbs down: Rubber mulch (except in a playground situation)and synthetic pinestraw.

Thumbs down: Neighbors who ask me to design THEIR gardens...just becasue mine "looks so good." I could be flattered, but--

1) I garden by "feel"--my designs are the product of trial, error, plant obsession, plantwalking, and some great guidance from THIS group.

2) I actually TAKE CARE of my garden. Neighbors in question will not.

3) My garden is built around serious hardscape--it provides the structure for what I plunk in place. The yards in question have little-to-no hardscape.

melanie

Thumbs up for melanie's return.

Thumbs up for the people on this forum who help me figure out the thumbs up and thumbs down.

Thumbs down for nursery personnel who don't bother to tell you that a certain plant is invasive and thumbs further down for those who out and out deny it or who tell you "sure that won't have any trouble with our zone 3 climate".

Yeah--I'm back. Thanks for the welcome! I'm even back at WORK! (Part time--but hey, something is better than nothing!) And Prarie love--I ALWAYS tell people things are invasive/aggressive.

My favorite question of the week--"Can you recommend a ground cover that spreads quickly and easily--but isn't invasive?"

I didn't laugh--but I'm afraid I did deadpan "Nonexistant." Then I explained that things that spread quickly and easily are ALWAYS invasive. Some are just tougher to eradicate once they've invaded than others...

I let some lysimachia escape from a pot...and I'm STILL finding it in that bed. Three years later! Now lysimachia only gets planted in pots that sit on pavers...