The winner of the Perrier Comedy Award (male) has been presented with a bunch. Delia Smith put some on the cover of her best- selling Summer Collection cookery book. The smartest lovers’ bouquets now contain only blood- red “Nicole” or “Baccarole” (almost black) roses.”It’s a gesture against all that pastel good taste,” says Monty Don. “The cottage-garden style has gone as far as it can and disappeared up its own backside.”The single most popular flower of the Nineties, however, has to be the sunflower. or an innercity slum, this garden was all small, well-behaved trees (Robinia pseudoacacia “Frisia”, Gleditsias, silver pears), topiary cones and rampant Russian vine smothering the eyesores and creating overnight “maturity”.Another recession brings us full circle into the Nineties. It’s no surprise that plants have reacted against the past once again, with brightly coloured flowers making a comeback, just as in the depressed Thirties.

Many people in that champagne and cocaine era had no interest in gardening at all, but they were quite happy to pay for someone else to do it for them.”This was the decade of the property boom, when yuppies bought and sold houses as a new form of speculation The instant “country house come to town” garden was born Whether attached to a des res. “There’s a distinct trend toward rich, strong jewel colours,” reports Monty Don. “Soft pinks, greys and silvers are out and deep oranges, purples, dark blues and rich burgundy reds are replacing them.” As for species, some of the most mocked and despised garden plants are poised for a comeback: dahlias, peonies, chrysanthemums and gladioli. “People started seeing the garden as another fashion accessory,” he recalls, “something to buy off the peg to impress your friends. Pergolas, gazebos, clipped box topiary and pleached lime allees made their first appearance since their revival in the Victorian era.The fashion was fuelled by the new vogue for garden history and restoration and the rise of the garden designer. “Designers once worked only for the aristocrats and the wealthy,” says Jill Billington, “but during the economic boom of the Eighties, people thought, if they could have someone to design the kitchen, why not the garden?”At a time when he was running his successful costume-jewellery design business, Monty Don, now a garden writer, could not help noticing what was going on in the nation’s back gardens. “It was all part of the one-upmanship of the decade,” says Jill Billington.

“People competed to see how unusually shaped their plants could be.”The other major trend of the Eighties was the passion for (rediscovered) formality. Led by Sir Roy Strong and his shocking Italian garden at the V&A, garden-lovers tried to persuade every plant they could lay hands on to grow as a standard, including holly, bay, laurel, roses, hibiscus and fruit trees. His earnest views encouraged the spread of organic and wildlife gardening, the banning of toxic chemicals and the vogue for wild-flower meadows and piles of rotting wood as homes for hedgehogs. Two other trends competed for the attention of the postmodern gardener, however.

Eighties sophisticates with matt black Filofaxes went crazy for “architectural” plants where shape mattered more than colourful flowers. Hostas, gunneras, drumstick primroses, alliums, sea holly and rheums were all highly prized. Avant-garde designers like Myles Challis created complete replica jungles. While Beatlemania gripped the nation’s youth, their parents attempted to be as “with it” as possible by installing pine panelling and picture windows in the house and a paved patio in the garden.