Gardens don’t follow trends quite like fashion does, but styles, favored plants, and maintenance routines are always evolving. So, we asked eight garden pros to share their predictions for the year ahead. Themes of ecologically-minded gardening dominated their forecasts, but we also heard about garden tourism, mash-up aesthetics, and the return of the romantic landscape.
Read on for the full 2025 garden forecast:
The natural aesthetic will continue to gain popularity.
Above: For a client in Ames, Iowa, Norris created a dry meadow gravel garden. He planted drifts of feathery Bouteloua gracilis ‘Honeycomb’, prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera), Rudbeckia ‘Sweet as Honey’, bright orange Asclepias tuberosa, quaking aspen trees into the sandy loam, and then topped the beds with five inches of ¼ inch pea gravel. Photography courtesy of Kelly D. Norris, from Ask the Expert: Horticulturist Kelly D. Norris on the ‘New Naturalism’.
Horticulturist Kelly D. Norris, the author of forthcoming book Your Natural Garden, has been promoting a “new naturalism” style for years. Today, he says he’s finally seeing a significant subset of gardeners becoming comfortable with the look. Norris credits this to both an interest in ecological gardening and a loosening up of landscape beauty standards. “I find myself surprised over and over at just how far people are willing to go, particularly in comparison to the rest of their landscape, which is often more conventional,” says Norris, who notes it’s not always about changing the entire garden. “The trend is almost like giving nature a ‘room’ within the garden.”
Social circles will emerge.
Above: A traditional Jens Jensen council circle. Photograph courtesy of Verru Design.
Damon Arrington and Corwin Green of Brooklyn’s Verru Design see clients craving space for connection, a desire that may revive an interest in Jens Jensen-inspired social circles, which are traditionally created by placing stones in a circle configuration. “Mr. Jensen, a Danish American landscape architect, used his ‘council rings’ as symbols of mankind collaborating,” explains Arrington. “Like Jensen, we believe in embedding community in our design methodology and consider the council ring a great addition to any landscape.” They expand on Jensen’s vision by considering hot tubs a modern type of social circle (see one in their Brooklyn townhouse project featured on Gardenista).
Weeds will win new friends.
Above: Verbena stricta is often considered a “weed,” growing on roadsides and other wild places, but Norris argues it deserves a place in the garden. Photograph by Mississippi Watershed Management Organization via Flickr.
“The interest in native plants has opened up a whole new vein of curiosity and has begun to shine a light on species that previously wouldn’t have been on most gardener’s radars,” says Norris. For example, when Norris hosted garden tours in his own Des Moines garden, he was blown away by how interested people were in plants like Verbena stricta (stiff vervain). “This is a plant I first knew as a roadside wildflower and pasture weed, but I grew it anyway,” he says. Today, the plant that his grandmother said was “just a weed’ was the highlight for garden visitors.
We’ll think bigger when it comes to native plants.
Above: Beloved for both its juicy berries and its delicate white blossoms, serviceberry is an increasingly popular understory tree. It’s pictured here in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Photograph by Marie Viljoen, from June Is Serviceberry Season! Here’s How to Use the Foraged Fruit for Sweet Treats.
Heather Evans, the co-founder of Design Your Wild, thinks gardeners’ interest in native perennials will expand to native shrubs and trees. “Trees and shrubs add structure and shrubs generally support many times the number of native insects as wildflowers, a fact that surprises many people,” says Evans. Her readers are loving flowering trees and shrubs, including serviceberries, redbuds, hydrangeas, and viburnums, but she also expects renewed interest in native evergreens, both conifers like eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) and big-leaved evergreens like great rosebay (Rhododendron maximum) and inkberry holly (Ilex glabra).
Sumac will get the attention it deserves.
Above: A potted staghorn sumac (back left) grows in Anna Dabrowska’s 2021 Chelsea Flower Show garden. Photograph by Clare Coulson, from Container Gardening at the Chelsea Flower Show: A Tiny Garden with a Big Message.
Arrington and Green were even more specific, highlighting staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) as a standout native tree for 2025, especially in coastal environments like New York City where they design gardens. “Rhus typhina is a wonderful specimen tree for smaller spaces. Clients love its brilliant fall and winter showing,” says Arrington, who says gardeners need to know two things about sumac. First, sumac is often confused with the invasive Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), which you do not want in your garden. Second, sumac can be expected to put out suckers in an attempt to create groves, but this can be contained with hardscaping.
We’ll re-examine our hardscape choices.
Above: Sedlacek used ORCA’s permeable Worn Clay pavers in Ash for this outdoor kitchen. Photograph by Justin Chung, courtesy of ORCA.
Molly Sedlacek, the founder of ORCA, a landscape design and outdoor product studio based in California, thinks people are going to be more selective with their hardscape and ground cover choices. Instead of high-carbon, impermeable surfaces like concrete or artificial turf, gardeners will embrace local, bio-based materials that create permeable surfaces, which Sedlacek explains allow rainwater to pass through to the earth beneath and replenish natural aquifers “At ORCA, we are sourcing natural materials made from local clay, recycled block, and Black Locust wood reflective of the native soil,” says Sedlacek.
Gardens will be more rooted in place.
Above: Leslie Needham,a garden designer based in Bedford, New York, blurs the lines between garden and the surrounding landscape in her work. Photograph courtesy of Leslie Needham Design, from Ideas to Steal: 8 Tips from Leslie Needham on Designing Gardens that ‘Blur the Edges’.
“People are cottoning on to the idea of place, and how a garden should sit within its location comfortably,” says U.K.-based garden designer Jo Thompson, the author of The Gardening Mind. Thompson sees gardens moving away from ostentation and towards melding with the surrounding landscape, for example by using materials that link with the landscape beyond, and plants that “are allowed to be themselves, rather than being manicured into a controlling straitjacket.”
Romance will make a return.
Above: Thompson created this classically romantic garden for the RHS Chatsworth Show back in 2017. Photograph by Jim Powell for Gardenista, from Landscape Ideas: Jo Thompson’s Very English Garden.
Thompson has also recently seen a refreshed interest in romantic-style gardens (so much so that she has written a forthcoming book, The New Romantic Garden, on the topic). “People are leaving perfection behind and instead focusing on the idea of a garden with atmosphere,” she says. “Think loose, relaxed plantings that are a haven for the birds and the bees, as well as the humans who are the custodians of the garden.”
Veggie gardens are getting a makeover.
Above: Christian Douglas, a California-based garden designer, weaves vegetables into more traditional gardens. Photograph by Sasha Gulish from The Food Forward Garden. See Required Reading: ‘The Food Forward Garden,’ A Manual on How to Have Your Beautiful Yard—And Eat It Too.
Southern California-based garden designer Chia-Ming Ro, the founder of Coastal Homestead (@coastal_homestead), sees gardeners creating fresh interpretations of classic cottage gardens interlaced with edibles. “I have clients, especially urban dwellers, asking to combine fruits, veggies, and herbs with ornamentals to create a stunning and productive garden,” says Ro. “When you don’t have a lot of space, why choose between beauty and function?”
Minimalism + softness = a new amalgam style.
Above: Hardscaping, but make it soft. Photograph by Jorden DeGaetano, courtesy of Talc Studio, from Landscape Design Visit: ‘Moving Art’ in a San Francisco Yard by Talc Studio.
Amber Grossman the author of the forthcoming book Black Girls Gardening and founder of the Instagram account of the same name @blackgirlsgardening sees a new mash-up garden style emerging. “Stylistically, I think minimalist designs with naturalistic planting schemes and organic shapes will dominate, blending aesthetics with functionality.” For example, Grossman sees gardeners turning to more natural materials like mulch or branches from trees to line pathways instead of gravel or plastic tiles. “I predict more soft edges, curves, and irregular shapes versus straight lines and rigid borders, so plants blend seamlessly into the surroundings,” she adds.
The silver trend is coming for the garden.
Above:: Sedlacek predicts our long-running obsession with gold-toned hardware will be replaced with an appreciation for silvery hues. ORCA’s Slide Bolt in Worn Silver is $265.
Sedlacek is seeing the interior design and fashion trend of silver making its way outdoors. “In addition to silver plant palettes, I predict silver edging and hardware finishes that bring a reflective element to the garden,” she says.
Gardeners will want to go analog.
Above: Photograph by Heidi Swanson, from Cooking with Fire: If You’re Not Grilling Over a Real Fire, What Even Is the Point?
Sedlacek also sees clients going intentionally analog. “With the rise of AI and smart home technology, people are craving moments to unplug in their garden,” she says. “For example, at ORCA, we are designing more primitive kitchens, opting for fire pit grills over gas stoves and utilitarian hardware over fancy smart locks.” (See Object of Desire: A Minimalist South American-Inspired Open Fire Grill.)
Horticultural tourism is on the rise.
Above:: Sezincote, one of thousands of private gardens in England open to the public, photographed by Design Your Wild’s Heather Evans in June 2024.
As the wave of pandemic gardeners become more experienced, Evans predicts they will discover the joy of visiting other people’s gardens. “Visiting gardens–both public and private–is a great way to pick up ideas for plants, design, and features,” she says. In fact, the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program, in which private gardens open up to the public, has seen consistent growth in visitors since the pandemic. Comparing 2019 ticket sales (22,000) to 2024’s (37,200), there is nearly 70-percent growth! Evans plans trips around Open Days and last year, she spent a week touring gardens in England,with the help of the Garden Visitor’s Handbook, which is published annually and lists 3,500 gardens open for charity.
We’ll start to address the plastic problem.
Above: A metal soil blocker replaces the need for small plastic seedling pots. Photograph by Sarah Elliott, from 5 Quick Fixes: Plastic-Free Ways to Start Seeds.
Evans says her students have been dismayed to discover the overwhelming plastic pot waste associated with transforming yards from lawn to natives. However, she thinks those ecologically-minded gardeners will drive change in the industry; in fact, nurseries are already experimenting with biodegradable pots. ”In the meantime, we can reduce the amount of plastic waste we generate by buying plugs, bare root plants, or balled and burlapped trees, rather than standard nursery-size pots,” she says. “Or, even better, we can propagate our own plants from seed or cuttings.”
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