At the First National New Crops Symposium in 1988, I reported on four trends that were influencing the introduction of new landscape plants (Widrlechner 1990). These trends were:

1. increased interest in, and use of, low-input plantings;

2. edible landscaping;

3. in vitro propagation methods; and

4. ways to overcome limitations caused by urban conditions.

But trends, by their very nature, are dynamic; what was timely twenty years ago can be passé today. The environment in which nursery producers and retailers operate continually evolves, and the trends that affect them and their consumers need periodic re-analysis. Thus, the objectives of this brief review are to examine how past trends have fared and to describe some trends that now supplant them or are poised to become more important.