Brighton and Hove hopes for success in a contest to find Britain's most blooming city. Talk to the council and you will be told the resort is a riot of floral colour.

But this does not accord with the views of many older people in the city who regard today's displays as a pale imitation of those in the past when the twin towns in spring and summer were a sea of bedding plants.

In the past, the man in charge of parks and gardens in a resort such as Brighton would have been a well-known figure. Indeed Clifford Musgrave says in his book, Life in Brighton, that Captain BH MacLaren in the Twenties was a considerable character, being picturesque in appearance and profane in speech.

He adds: "MacLaren achieved worldwide fame for breaking away from the unimaginative dreariness then typical of municipal gardens. Paved walks, flower beds, lawns and a children's paddling pool were laid out on the Lower Promenade near the West Pier.

"The unsightly iron railings were removed from the gardens of the Steine and Preston Park was changed from railings and gloom to openness and light."

MacLaren was also responsible for the amazing rock garden that still exists today opposite Preston Park. Then one of the largest in the world, it cleverly concealed an ugly railway embankment.

His successor, Ray Evison, was another formidable figure. He was a national expert on gardening by the sea and wrote a book on the topic. He managed to provide some of the best displays in Britain in the windswept gardens near the West Pier, a sad shadow of their former glory but about to be landscaped.

The change started under the stewardship of his successor, Mike Griffin, another gifted plantsman whose remit was extended far and wide.

In time he was controlling everything from the new Prince Regent pools to the horse driving trials at Stanmer Park but never looked happier than when he was looking after flowers.

After his departure, parks and gardens gradually became small parts of large departments until private contractors were hired.

This coincided with a change of emphasis. Brighton (and Hove when the towns amalgamated) moved largely away from the serried ranks of bedding plants drilled with almost military precision.

Instead, the council is concentrating on having a much more natural look as typified by the country garden feel of the Pavilion Gardens in the heart of the city or in Hove Park where, since the 1987 hurricane, a wild woodland area has been created.

At the same time, the city centre has been decorated by trees and shrubs, often in planters, which are none too pretty in themselves. Businesses and town centre residents are encouraged to contribute by putting out hanging baskets, loved by some but abhorred by others.

More attention is given to the part that can be played in the urban landscape by trees, with people being encouraged to make their own contribution by paying for saplings to be planted in tree and parks. Heroic efforts have been made to save the city's unique collection of elms despite the worst that disease and storms can throw at them.

I fancy that Captain MacLaren would not be amused if he saw people tramping across the Victoria Gardens where public access was once banned or the age it is taking to restore Preston Park.

But fashions change in gardening as in everything else and, like it or not, discipline in parks has been replaced with a carefree informality.