Garden Design Trends for 2025

When it comes to gardening , what we mean by a ‘trend’ is in fact very different than what a ‘trend ‘ would be when it comes to fashion, home décor, or even social media posting😊

Trends in gardening are more like ‘ movements’– gardening  evolves and changes over many seasons, years and is an activity in which you build upon accumulated ‘growing’ experiences.  These ‘ movements’ are far from fleeting as sometimes many trends eventually prove to be ‘one and done’. Our gardens really become the personification of our growing  journeys. We are delighted to witness the growing ‘movements’ ( ok we’ll just refer to them as ‘trends’) in this beloved pastime as gardeners come in to the garden centre and tell us what they are interested in growing and what they hope to achieve in the cultivation of their landscapes.

So we shall highlight a few of these gardening trends as we look towards the new growing season, in no particular order of importance – we just think they are all just so wonderful😊

1. the rise of NATIVE plants – This is definitely one of the most important needs to today’s gardener who ultimately want to create spaces where they can appreciate, promote and enjoy the bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, birds and other wildlife – no matter where they may live or the size of garden they have. We will be talking a lot about native plants over the year, sufficeth to say that this mention will have a lot more discussion in the coming weeks / months.
2. Finding happiness in a less tidy garden – you may hear the slogan ‘ leave the leaves’ or don’t’ fight the dandelions’ but this disciplined approach to letting Mother Nature look a little less ‘formal’  is awakening a whole new perspective on what a beautiful garden looks like.
3. Creating gardens that are low water landscapes and do not look like a collage of sempervivums. REJOICE!! Gardeners are finding refreshed ways to grow drought tolerant gardens without relying on plants that have fleshy leaves such as creeping sedums or needle -like leafed Yuccas. Contrasting textures using ornamental grasses, drought hardy shrubs and flowering perennials such as achillea and Russian sage are HOT  right now in landscape design and for good reason – so much easier to manage when you are not obliged to water all the time.
4. Creating living spaces for people and wildlife – and no we are not suggesting that gardeners are wanting to share their outdoor retreats with the rabbits , chipmunks or deer, but rather encourage helpful and positive garden wildlife visitors in public parks through thoughtful design to invite pollinators using perennial groundcovers such as white clovers, hairy vetch in place of lawns.
5. Turning to resilient plants to manage environmental stressors – Plants that are well adapted to withstand pollution, climate change and disease , can indeed thrive where other species perish. Our most recent example is boxwood, with the dreaded boxwood blight fungus quickly destroying established plants. This disease has become very common in areas such as Niagara and the GTA, and last year , our Kingston gardeners were starting to see this show up .  Adaptive gardeners will start to look at plants such as inkberry  holly, euonymus and even taxus instead of boxwood in order to avoid losing a foundation planting.
6. A nod to nostalgia – this trend speaks to our love of that classic ,rambling , colourful cottage garden . A relaxed style that allows gardeners the chance to relive their time with ‘grandparents’ by cultivating and nurturing classic bloomers such as iris, peonies, bachelors buttons and delphiniums.
7. Growing your gardening knowledge – we are so lucky that our gardening community is happy to share their experiences and never before has it been so easy – gardening webinars, zoom calls with our local Thousand Island Master Gardeners – technology today is indeed welcoming more and more people to enjoy their time in the garden by building on their knowledge base.

So do you concur that gardening trends really are more like a ‘movement’?  Does your garden style fit in with any of these identified ‘drivers’ that  keeps us outside digging, weeding, seeding, transplanting, cutting, harvesting , and most of all LOVING  this pastime.

Happy 2025 gardening friends!