Gardening Trends In 2007

Whether you’re just getting into gardening, trying to streamline your gardening activities, or wanting to have a landscape and plants reflective of the times, being aware of the latest gardening trends can help.

This past year Chris Beytes, the editor of a professional growers magazine, described several specific trends which reflect four main traits of new gardeners and their gardening. For starters, we are no longer gardening as in past generations, nor will kids today garden as we do. Related to this is the fact that many are actually decorating instead of gardening. For many, it’s no longer about planting, watering, pruning. This can be considered work, even if there is time for such activities.

The new “luxury consumer” has and wants nice things. This consumer often skimps on one thing so they can splurge on another. Then there is “hiving”—using the home as the business center of a busy life, complete with media, internet, fitness, and the like. This is the outgrowth of the former “cocooning” and “nesting.”

There are at least a dozen specific trends in gardening:

--Blurring of lines. It is no longer clear what is annual, or what is perennial. Tropicals are planted as annuals, as are some woody plants. It is more about end effect.
--Tall. From pots to plants, tall is more popular now than in previous years. Ornamental grasses are a perfect fit.
--The tropical look. Tropical plants, and those that look tropical with exotic foliage or flowers, have been around a few years and are still popular. Cannas, alocasias, and hibiscus are popular examples.
--Big and bold. Perhaps an outgrowth of tropical, this is now seen in bright colors, bold color combinations, and big foliage such as with some of the new coleus. This trend, as well as the tropical and others, reflects a global fusion of cultures.
--Foliage. Perhaps another outgrowth of tropical, plants just for foliage are popular. There are almost too many coralbells to choose from, most the new ones grown for leaves rather than the flowers of older cultivars (cultivated varieties). Coleus and hosta are popular, as are foliage colors such as yellows and black.
--Perennials. Perhaps not as popular as a decade ago, they still are favored by many but more now with annuals, as container plants, for low maintenance, or for specific uses.
--Native plants. These are a growth area of perennials. A trend within these is choosing ones native to specific areas, or habitats. This trend reflects the desire to balance technology with nature, to seek calm, to find sustainability.
--Organics. This trend has taken off with foods, and is spilling into the landscape and gardening choices as well.
--Hardscaping. This is the term for decks, walks, raised beds, patios, stone bed edges, and the like. You don’t have to look far in most neighborhoods to see such examples.
--Bringing the indoors out. This is related to the decorating and hiving already mentioned. More each year are turning the outside into living, even work, spaces.
--Indoor decorating. Plants are being used indoors not because they are plants, but for their design element, to add color, texture and accent to the surroundings.
--Nostalgia. Old-fashioned and heirloom flowers and vegetables evoke memories of (and a desire for?) simpler times in an increasingly complex world. For others, such “retro gardening” evokes a hope and optimism of the past.

The Color Marketing Group is an organization of professionals whose focus is to identify consumer desires in colors, and to provide recommendations for all manner of consumer products. According to them, color choices in general now are warmer and brighter. Specifically, their choices for popular colors now are reds, including a raspberry hue, and blues, including bluish green (think relaxation, as from spas and oceans).

When making this year’s garden plans and shopping for plants, think of these trends for new ideas, and see if you can spot some in magazines and stores.

Article Source: http://www.article-exposure.com

Leonard P. Perry, Extension Professor, Univ. of Vermont
Checked out Perry's Perennial Pages lately? www.uvm.edu/~pass/perry/