As the year draws to a close, trend forecasting is in full swing, from must-have plants to emerging landscape styles. But nothing signals the start of a new year quite like Pantone’s Color of the Year announcement.

And while teal will always be the COTY in our hearts, the Pantone Color Institute has chosen Mocha Mousse—a rich, comforting neutral poised to make its mark in everything from interiors to landscapes.

Pantone describes Mocha Mousse as “a mellow brown infused with a sensorial and comforting warmth.” This shade is a dramatic departure from last year’s boring Peach Fuzz. Its grounding and sophisticated tone feels perfectly on trend. As darker finishes and earth tones dominate both home and garden design, Mocha Mousse is a natural, neutral choice.

Great Grow Along (GGA), an annual ten-day virtual festival, aims to connect and inspire gardeners with influencers worldwide while educating them on cutting-edge content. The 2023 festival, which ran in March, featured sixty+ educational sessions and virtual garden tours. A record-breaking 56k people logged in to see the speakers and chat with the community.

This event is for gardeners of all experience levels and is free for live streaming during the event. Every day of the festival is packed with expert education, practical advice, and creative inspiration from industry leaders and top influencers.

Now that the event has passed, viewers can subscribe for an on-demand session here.

Catchy names for each day, such as Wildlife Wednesday and Sustainability Sunday, aim to bring attention to the topics covered. Big-named brands like Park® Seed, Sunset® Plant Collection, and Garden For Wildlife™ sponsor the event to keep the content current and free of charge for viewers. 

Whether this was your first year attending or your third, everyone left the event with a wealth of information about various gardening topics. Sessions presented ranged from water-wise plantings to supporting hummingbird species and creating a healthy gardening ecosystem.
 
One of the festival's creators, LaManda Joy, believes the world would be better with more gardeners. "I am thrilled to empower individuals to reach new heights in their gardening journey," says Joy. "This festival allows us to share our expertise and advice and puts education at the forefront, giving new gardeners the confidence and tools they need to succeed."

Read on to learn more about the Great Grow Along and highlights from a few sessions!

You know we love trends here at Garden Media, so as the new gardening season approaches, we thought it would be a great time to take a sneak peek at some of the latest trends in the green industry.

From utilitarian fashion to the latest and greatest lawn ornaments, the gardening world constantly innovates and develops new and exciting ideas.

We have been busy worker bees preparing our 2024 Garden Trends Report and decided we couldn’t WAIT to share. In this blog post, we will explore some of the most unique and unconventional trends emerging in gardening.

Read on to be amazed and inspired by these cutting-edge 2024 gardening trends!

Meltwater, an online media monitoring company, recently launched a report that shared current trends in social media for 2023. 

The report offered findings from over 1,700 marketing and communications professionals globally. The short: paid and organic social media are expected to increase in 2023. Garden businesses must stay at the top of their game and adapt while also increasing their skillset. 

In the report, social media platforms were ranked by usage and popularity. Facebook is still holding the top ranking, followed by LinkedIn and Instagram. YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok remain relevant while being slightly less popular than the top three. Short-form video is hot right now on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. 

Read on to learn more about how social media has maintained and even gained importance during the current economic development. 

A love of gardens and plants have been prevalent throughout history at many major event spaces and attractions. Recently, the love of gardening is breaking into the sports world and has become the center of attention at some major league baseball (MLB) stadiums. With interest in gardening continuing to become more and more popular, even the players and faculty have joined in to help create these gardens. Here are some of our favorite gardens in the MLB.

Gardening is on the tip of everyone’s tongues as unprecedented millions took to plants during the pandemic. Are you speaking the new gardener’s language?

This report analyzes millions of social media posts and articles written across the course of the pandemic. These gardening posts reveal key patterns in language and sentiment – and represent a significant shift in the way the public talked about plants before and after COVID-19.

Navigating emerging pandemic trends and topics, Mind the Gap helps readers better relate to the gardening public – and gain the trust of the new gardener.

The headlines seem to be everywhere – skyrocketing plant sales, seed shortages, and a cut flower frenzy. On the heels of the pandemic, 2021 has seen a fervor for plants and garden goods that our industry hasn’t experienced in years.

As industry struggles to meet the demands of the massive “plantdemic” gardening trend, many are acutely aware of how limited supplies are this spring.

And this has led to an important question: how much of the “sold out blues” are consumers feeling? 

This spring, many gardeners (including first-timers) arrived at the garden center ready to shop, only to be met with empty shelves and in some cases, unfulfilled wishes. In our visions of worst-case scenarios, we imagine them getting frustrated and giving up – even abandoning the hobby.

Luckily, social media is giving us insight into consumers’ thoughts and feelings…

Read more to find out what they’re posting - it isn’t what you might expect!

We've unveiled our twentieth Garden Trends Report, available for download now.

This month, garden industry insiders will gather virtually for Cultivate’20, AmericanHort’s annual conference.

Katie will once again be premiering the firms widely anticipated annual Garden Trends Report and sharing what they see as the future of gardening.

Katie will present the firm’s 2021 Garden Trends Report, The Great Reset, LIVE and offer a peek into what will be trending in horticulture in 2021 and beyond on a panel, “A Retailers’ Planning Guide for 2021: You asked to be declared an essential business, now choose to be one.”

We work year-round to source trends for our Garden Trend Reports. And what better day than April 1 to share with you some of the biggest trends we’re predicting for 2021.