When I put a call out to my garden design friends about the topic of “cramscaping,” I received a lot of replies along the lines of, “I have never heard of cramscaping, but I suspect I do it” or “I had no idea this was a thing, but it’s what I practice on a regular basis.” The concept had recently been covered in The Seattle Timesand I was curious to discover its origins.

I ultimately found a reference to “cramscaping” in Loree Boh’s book Fearless Gardening: Be Bold, Break the Rules, and Grow What You Love, which was published in 2021. When I called Bohl, who also writes the popular blog Danger GardenBohl said she didn’t coin the term, but she recalls the first time she heard a garden style described as “cramscaping.” Bohl was walking the Northwest Flower & Garden Show with a friend, who used the term to describe the display they were looking at. “It instantly just made sense to me,” says Bohl. “It says it all: Lots of plants.” When Bohl asked her friend about the term, she pointed to their mutual friend, plantsman and garden designer Sean Hogan of Cistus Nursery.

Next, I reached out to Hogan to see if he knew the term’s provenance. Hogan told me he wasn’t sure if he originated the phrase, but it has been in his personal lexicon since the 1990s. Hogan remembers first using it to describe a container that was planted so densely and with such variety that he likened it to a bouquet. From there, he started using the word to describe landscapes in general. “If you can have a quick phrase or a fun just word to give people a different picture, it allows people to think outside the boxwood, as it were,” he says.

So what is cramscaping exactly?

Both Bohl and Hogan define a cramscape as richly layered with a variety of plants and no bare earth visible. The term may be instantly understandable, but Bohl is quick to point out that cramscaping is not simply squeezing as many plants as possible into a landscape. “Cramscaping is done with a little more care and knowledge of eventual plant sizes and plant needs,” she explains, noting that without this foresight, an extra densely planted garden can be “a disaster waiting to happen.”