Season 1 • Episode 4 - August 29, 2022

We take a look into the future! This week we are talking about gardening trends. Who starts them and what they mean for the average gardener. Are trends something new or are they just renamed old ideas to market new plants? We also take a look at a couple of plants that you should be looking for next year in your garden center.

In this episode of the Garden Time podcast we take a trip into the future! We are talking about gardening trends. We’ll discuss how trends start and even look at a few hot new plants you may want to try in your garden. We have often wondered who decides what is trending. Sure, the customers determine what is hot and what is not, but someone has to introduce these plants and trends to the market. We have found a couple of companies that help bring these new ideas to market and introduce them to the public.

Garden Media Group is one company. They are a marketing and consulting firm that does the research to find out what is coming up in the garden industry. They do a yearly study and release the information to the market. We talked about their recent ideas for what will be trending for 2023. The other group is one that we have talked about before. The National Garden Bureau releases their ‘plants of the year’, which showcases various plants and talks about the benefits of each one. The GMG looks at a lot of different indicators to see what consumers want and what garden centers and growers can do to meet those needs (and trends). The NGB is pretty much picking plants to showcase them to homeowners to get them excited about gardening.

Ryan and Judy also talked about where they see a lot of new plants and trends, at national trade shows. Ryan recently attended Cultivate, a trade show in July that is a place where a lot of new plants and trends are revealed to retailers. Judy talked about the Far West Show which is a trade show here in Portland that does the same thing. Retailers go to these shows and see new products, and sometimes they place orders for new products that you will see in your garden center the following year.

Some of the plants that Ryan saw at Cultivate included Delphinium ‘Red Lark’, with its reddish colored blooms, the Sedum ‘Little Shimmer’, with tight variegated foliage, the Calibrachoa Million Bells ‘Orangina’, a rare orange-colored bloom on a million bells, and the Monstera obliqua with Swiss cheese foliage.

We also chatted about the indoor plant trends and design trends. Smaller gardens and the influx of new gardeners have people looking for plants that show-off and fit in tight spaces.
Give it a listen to hear more about these trends and why they are important to you, the gardener and also to your local retailer.

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