As with fashion, music and entertainment, gardening has trends. Each year some of the trends influence how our individual gardens evolve or are created.
Native and drought tolerant plants, container plantings and edible gardens continue to lead the list of what’s popular for gardens. When reading about trends coming out of Europe and the U.S., vibrant and vivid colours are in demand this year, along with a vast array of new designs in outdoor lighting, especially café lights. Fire pits are also gaining in popularity with many new designs coming onto the market.
The trend of vibrant colours isn’t confined to flowers. It also includes tools, trowels and hoses and even structures.
Helen Battersby, a Toronto-based garden writer, says “Whether it’s a terrarium, a living wall or an indoor planter, people are becoming more interested in treating a plant pot as a small-scale landscape. Instead of just having a single houseplant in a pot, they’re applying ‘thriller, spiller, filler’ container gardening techniques and other design principles to indoor gardens.”
Gelderman’s Landscape Designer Andrea Weddum wrote last year about creating beautiful planters. See Planters.
Paul Zammit, Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden, says the majority of today’s gardeners want low maintenance. He says shrubs and succulent plants are popular. He sees various varieties of kale staying hot, while novelty veggies are becoming the next thing. “We grew kalettes, a cross between kale and Brussels sprouts, at the Toronto Botanical Garden last summer and people went nuts over it because it looked cool and is good for us.”
Pollinator-friendly gardens are a big emerging trend. From flowers to habitats, many people are gardening with bees in mind, as well as birds and butterflies.
See one of our earlier blogs on attracting pollinators.
And it seems another trend that appears to be the next hot-thing is the return of gnomes as the preferred garden figurine.
No matter the latest trend, enjoy your garden and the many benefits that comes with creating your little piece of paradise.
