Preliminary Study On The Contemporary Western Planting Design

While as plant is an important element of landscape design, plant landscape is the unique part of landscape design. It is paid more attention on landscape planting design with the development of Ecology.This study is focus on contemporary western planting design in landscape. Through the relevant documents and information on the western planting design ,the author gave an overview of traditional western planting design development process, from ancient garden planting design (before 5^th century AD ) to the Middle Ages planting design( the 5^th to 14^th century) ,to the Renaissance planting design(14^th to 16^th century), to the Le· Notre planting design(17^th century) and the natural planting design(18^th century). Analyzed the main factors for the contemporary western planting design, such as the development of plant science and horticulture, the modern western ecological landscape design, the development of modern arts and cultural, and the development of the nature concept. Through the study on many landscape works, summarized the characters of the contemporary western planting design: natural essence, regional features, plant diversity, indicative of the environment, and the dynamic landscape of life. The contemporary western planting design is going to be more natural and have diversity styles.The essay studies on charactors, backgrounds and development trends of contemporary western planting design in order to provide some references to planting design in China and developing national contemporary planting design.