We investigate the asymptotic properties of the inhomogeneous nonautonomous evo-is a Hille-Yosida operator on a Banach space X, B(t), t ∈ R, is a family of operators in ᏸ(D(A), X) satisfying certain boundedness and measurability conditions and f ∈ L 1 loc (R, X). The solutions of the corresponding homogeneous equations are represented by an evolution family (U B (t, s)) t≥s . For various function spaces Ᏺ we show conditions on (U B (t, s)) t≥s and f which ensure the existence of a unique solution contained in Ᏺ. In particular, if (U B (t, s)) t≥s is p-periodic there exists a unique bounded solution u subject to certain spectral assumptions on U B (p, 0), f and u. We apply the results to nonautonomous semilinear retarded differential equations. For certain p-periodic retarded differential equations we derive a characteristic equation which is used to determine the spectrum of (U B (t, s)) t≥s .