Unfortuneately, for designers the short term is often seen as;

1. all there is – so fashion and the moment is everything
2. of no value at all – so only large public commissions count

Whereas each garden typology has its particular temporality – ie. Short term: Chelsa for experimentation and trends in garden design and Long term: Large parks and palatial gardens for excellence.

Of course, this is a simplistic division. Something may be created at Chelsa which is so extraordinary that either the public or the profession demand that it be kept. While a large public commission may be so badly executed that it is unworthy of being kept even for the expected duration of the garden design.

And there is much that is relevant to the medium term….urban commissions require longer spans for planning and execution….but they are by nature often temporary because of the constant pressure for cities to evolve to meet changing needs and expectations. It is in the medium term that the greatest challenges arise and there is the greatest requirement to be well versed in the importance of temporal judgments. It is here that the designer is responsible for the best of the past, for meeting the need of the present and for looking towards and anticipating the future!

It may be that landscape designers are especially versed in adopting the medium term view because of the fundamental nature of garden design. It requires patience to realise a design. Plants must mature and the garden be maintained for the design to take its intended shape.