Eight Trends for Gardening in 2024
1. Eco Conscious Gardens
This year more and more gardeners are expected to keep up with the trend of making sure their outdoor spaces are “Earth friendly” with attention to pollinator gardens, soil health, and an emphasis on blooms to attract & feed wildlife. Feeding wildlife isn’t the only aim of these gardens. With flowering native plants, compact berry bushes, edible roses, and tea garden plants you can grow your own food and herbal remedies for a more natural lifestyle. Plants like rosemary, milkweed, and fennel are great for both wildlife and home use.
As an added bonus, perennials stay in the ground longer, allowing them to store more carbon in the soil. Perennial versions of many winter veggies including, broccoli, artichokes, asparagus, kale, and herbs like sage, thyme, mint, and rosemary will be quite popular, especially earlier in the year while temperatures remain low.
Finally, reducing grass and lawn area for lower maintenance plants saves water and other resources and can make more room for previously mentioned plants.
2. Colorful Houseplants
Biophilic design is making its way into homes; the idea behind this theory being that bring nature into modern living promotes better health. For 2024 this trend points to more purchases of tropical houseplants that thrive in low light, and offer a greater variety of color than typical green houseplants. Plants such as monstera, pothos, philodendron, chameleon ZZ plant, Black Gold snake plant, and lemon meringue pothos create a foliage pallet with a range from electric, almost fluorescent green and yellow to bright pink and even purple hues. This offers more creativity in decorating with plants.
3. Gardening for Wellness
Along with a deeper connection to nature comes the desire to use gardening as a means to better health. Both outdoor and indoor spaces can be filled with plants that provide a sense of calm, especially when combined with meditation to breathe it in. Fragrant flowers like roses, mock orange, jasmine, and gardenia fill the air with their scents for a refreshing break from the rest of the day.
4. Heat & Drought Tolerant Plants
With the rise of climate-conscious gardening, the spotlight is now on heat-tolerant plants that not only withstand the heat but also thrive in these challenging conditions. This doesn’t necessarily require settling for a garden of cactus and rock, although that’s always an option. Plants like lavender, aloe, and salvia (or sage) are beautiful additions to any garden and have additional uses. Agave is another plant that does well in arid climates, as do yucca plants. And of course, if succulents are your thing, plant away.
5. Container Gardens
One “trend” that seems to make the list every year is container gardens proving you don’t need a lot of space to be a gardener. Container gardens make the most of patios, balconies, and even indoor spaces with everything from miniature roses to hanging tomatoes and hanging berries. A small herb garden fits nicely in a windowsill and ensures fresh herbs for any recipe. Check out this post for more information on container gardening.
6.Nostalgic Flowers
One trend we haven’t seen mentioned before is the desire for nostalgic flowers. Many gardeners are looking to up the romance around their homes with big, beautiful blooms and soft colors with climbing roses, hydrangea, peonies, and ranunculus. It’s like a wedding bouquet but in your yard. Most of these plants should be planted in the spring although many bulbs, including ranunculus are best planted a bit earlier and even in the fall if the winters aren’t too harsh. Yard Butler's bulb and garden planter makes this job way easier too.
7. Hortifuturism
On the flip side of romanticism is a more futuristic approach to gardening, favored by many younger gardeners. Inspired by science fiction, these garden trends embrace electric colors, succulents, and carnivorous plants for a more ethereal look. Plants with silver hues like lambs’ ears and mugwort and night-blooming flowers like primrose, tuberose, night-blooming jasmine, and the aforementioned mock orange all reflect moonlight to give off an alien landscape vibe. Adding interesting lighting effects, especially low voltage solar lights also add to the drama.
8. Goth Gardens
Speaking of drama, Gen Z seems to lean towards social media dramatic landscapes and goth gardens are no exception. Think vampire movies and dark, brooding, creepy gardens in deep red, purple, and burgundy with aged accessories. Many goth gardens also reach for a vintage look with red sunflowers and black mondo grass. There are many options for “black” flowering plants including calla lilies, bearded iris, columbine, hyacinth, and of course, black dahlia. Keep in mind, these plants aren’t actually black, just very dark purple or red but that still fits the gothic theme. Throw in a stone arch or a gargoyle and you’ll have a space Anne Rice would be proud of.
Conclusion
So there you have it, from Earth-friendly to gothic, spooky gardens with sustainable practices and planning for both color and fragrance, these are the things to watch for as we get closer to a spring full of planting and growing. Whatever trends you embrace this year, Yard Butler has the tools you need to make all of your gardening dreams come true. Most importantly, enjoy the adventure and be healthy.
