Ask a gardener what style of gardening they prefer and they are likely to describe it in terms of geography. They like English cottage style, or French formalism, or perhaps Japanese gardens.
Notice, no one ever says "Oh, I just love American Style gardens!"?
For a long time I thought this was because there is no such animal. Even a garden using native plants is likely to be planted either formally - somewhat like the French, or English cottage style. We do have a style we call Southwestern - but they have that in Mexico, too. It's hard to put a finger on anything that typifies an "American garden."
One day I asked a student from Japan what her garden at home was like. She told me that Japanese home gardens weren't at all like the ones we see in books. In fact, she told me proudly, her family had an American style garden.
Naturally, I got all excited and tried to pump her for more information, but Eri didn't know the English names for the plants. So finally she volunteered to bring me a popular Japanese gardening magazine.
Reading it took a bit of adjusting. First, I was surprised to see an ad on the front cover - until I realized that it was actually the back cover and that the magazine was meant to be read eastern-style - back to front, right to left. Having finally located the front, I then realized that the entire thing was in Japanese. After reading Sho-Gun I knew the words for thank you and goodbye - but using American characters, which was not much help. On the bright side, there were plenty of pictures, and not a whole lot of copy.
The first gardens looked normal enough - but for the US, not Japan. A couple were laid out quite formally, in a sort of grid, and filled with herbs. Kind of French, to my eye, like a potager with bamboo. The next few pages were filled with unmistakable English cottage style gardens. For just a moment I thought that these may have been Eri's American gardens, because the plantings included plenty of echinaceas and rudbeckias. Not so.
I saw one garden that looked something like what I expected to find in a Japanese gardening magazine - at least it was a mostly green space, with containerized hostas, hakonechloa, more bamboo, some carefully trimmed dwarf conifers and a bonsai in a pot. It was Japanese and yet not - less restrained, more cluttered than those we see portrayed in books - filled to the point where I found myself editing out the bonsai as being just a bit too much. But after turning to the next page I mentally replaced that bonsai with profuse apologies.
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