I agree with Eric_OH that junk and other 'props' do not define a cutting edge design. I wonder how much of this drive to "think outside the box" (the phrase itself now cliched) stems from people's urge to shock the neighbors? As cady stated: "I don't seem to have exceeded the tolerance range so far. Maybe it's time to try a big, rusted scrap metal sculpture in the front bed." As a fan of native plants, I sense that many native plant enthuseists are spoiling for a fight: "I know the Latin name of this plant, therefore it's not a weed, na, na!" If you really want to shock the neighbors, try this: a swept dirt yard. Old-fashioned and full of history, this type of landscape would nevertheless stick out in modern landscape. But would it be innovative? Or even good design? Are we trying to being individual for the sake of individualism? Is this necessarily a good thing? Traditional designs have stood the test of time because they are good...this era's really good innovations will become the next generations' traditionals. But are we all geniuses that need to attempt this level of innovation, or will we ultimately be disappointed??

Part of the problem is great books were written many years ago which are now out of print and not much has changed so nobody has written a new book. The Cherries of New York for example is a classic work about cherries; good luck finding it! I would suggest looking at a general old fruit book such as Downing. Here is what it has on the history: The Cherry comes originally from Asia,, and the Roman general, Lucullus, after a victorious expedition into Pontus, has the reputation of having brought it to Italy from Cerasus, a town in that province, in the year 69 B.C. According to Pliny, the Romans, 100 years after this, had eight varieties in cultivation, and they were soon afterwards carried to all parts of Europe. The seeds of the cultivated cherry were brought to this country very early after its settlement, both from Eng- land and Holland. --See http://www.archive.org/details/fruittreesfruits00downrich and click on the TXT link on the left for the easiest access. The Cherries of New York has a much longer history section I am sure. Downing is also a bit too old, he is the late 1800s. Scott

Well, let's see, we have three "yeas", zero "nays," and one doubting Thomas who have weighed in. :) INK, I can't promise that a name change will reinvigorate the forum, but is there a real downside to trying? As I think you've been trying to suggest, any forum is only as good and as active as the people who participate. The object of the name change is to try to draw more participants, perhaps with additional perspectives to contribute. It would be a relatively simple change for Garden Web to effect, and worse case scenario is that the name change has no effect on the current pace or nature of dialogue on the GW forum, so we're no worse off from where we started. I didn't mean to turn this into a rigidly parlementarian exercise. Reading over all of the posts above and on the earlier thread, I'm struck by the fact that everyone seems to agree that the GR forum has been fairly inactive lately, a number of people would welcome more historical discussion, and not a single person has weighed in to oppose a name change. On that basis, I'm ready to send an e-mail to GW management and see if they'd go for the proposed name change. I'll wait until Monday in case anyone wants to weigh in further here. Best to all -- Kate

A&AE, I have been following this discussion with great interest, because I am going to be decorating with some pieces in the future that are "Japonisme," which is Chinoiserie's cousin, lol! My mom lived in Japan for a year back in the mid 50's and brought back a ton of stuff. Some of it was made more for European tastes. Also, she lived in SF for three years after that and bought a lot of Japanese influenced things to go with what she brought back. I have inherited it all now. So I tend to love Asian influenced things but also I have a style that can be described as "sentimental" or as I call it, "cozy granny" because most of the stuff I like hasn't been in style since granny's day or even great great grandma. I've always liked antiques, but at my age, things that are considered antiques today are the MCM stuff I grew up with. When I was a kid back then, that was NOT the definition of antique! I like stuff from the late 1800's through Art Deco. I like Victorian, but couldn't live with most of it. Arts and crafts is one of my favorite styles and that definitely had an Asian influence. I don't know if Chinoiserie has ever been extremely popular, but right now I am up against a couple of trends which I think are also influencing how a younger generation might view Chinoiserie. One is gender, because my SO for whatever reason, is very strongly against floral things. My dad didn't like floral things all that much either, but he often just acquiesced to my mom and that was fairly typical I think of male/female relationships in the last century and maybe even the one before that. The home was the typical purvey of the "woman of the house" and Chinoiserie was popular with them. I think there is a great deal of sexism in considering certain colors and motif's "feminine" but it's out there and prevalent so there you go. My SO certainly suffers from that cultural conditioning. So now that men are taking a more active role in home-making (at least some men, my SO included) and marital relations are looked at more as a partnership, there's a lot more influence of taste that might be considered "masculine" in the home, from color palettes to art and furniture styles, like the "industrial" trend. Not to say that men don't like florals and women don't like gears, but I know in my decorating dilemmas, it is often gears vs flowers and we tend to compromise on styles and designs that are less extreme--abstracts, geometric stuff, etc. I'm not sure what will bring about a revival of the taste for Chinoiserie or even Victorian or antique anything. Folks are more transient nowdays and aren't as inclined to devote themselves to a set aesthetic in their homes. They want a flexible look. So I think individual pieces of Chinoiserie will always be popular, like art, dishes, fabrics and accent furniture. I think the total look will remain popular with only a few folks who can afford it. Because of the transience, I am afraid the days of those gorgeous Chinoiserie influence wallpapers are gone forever, at least in big common spaces in homes. While I love the look, even I myself would not go for it, because I would want to be able to more easily change out the look of a room from season to season or year to year. But I have little vignettes of Japonisme all around my current home. When I have some time, I may post some of them. Here's a quickie, just something I totally threw together. The framed pictures are very old calendar pics that my mom had from back in the 50's in SF. They are just there right now to fill up the space and hide the very ugly white back of the shelving units. They will go on the wall eventually, and my mom's collection of Japanese dolls will go in the unit when I get it properly set up and the glass doors installed.