Garden trends for 2013

This year will find more of us recon­nect­ing with nature and doing more down to earth ven­tures. It’s being called the “year of bliss” by the group Gar­den Media. They recently revealed their gar­den trends for 2013, and it sounds like a great gar­den year. While the snow is still on the ground and the cold temps are hang­ing around, start plan­ning your gar­den and your out­door liv­ing space.

The National Gar­den sur­vey results for the 2011 sea­son listed the total expense for DIY gar­den­ing was $29.1 bil­lion. Three mil­lion more gar­den­ers joined us. Spend­ing on gar­den­ing prod­ucts was up 2 per­cent, and the aver­age amount spent was $351. Sounds like gar­den­ing is still one of the top hob­bies across the country.

Susan McCoy, pres­i­dent of Gar­den Media said “Peo­ple are vot­ing with their wal­lets, and the win­ning brands are the ones that enhance lives and give back to communities.”

A sum­mary of the top 12 gar­den trends for 2013 are a follows:

• We want to know where our food comes from. Small fruit bushes will be in higher demand for easy com­pact grow­ing with con­tainer gar­den­ing high on the list.

• Social media con­tin­ues to grow, mak­ing it eas­ier for con­sumers to find, buy and talk.

• Health and well­ness forces are the No. 1 rea­son peo­ple select the prod­ucts they buy, accord­ing to research group TrendWatching.

• The gar­den blog Gar­den­Rant has pre­dicted herbs will be “the hot edi­ble of 2013,” along with berries and small fruits. They have named Lin­gonber­ries to be the #1 berry for this year.

• The com­pany Pan­tone, which pre­dicts the upcom­ing col­ors for the year has said that the hottest col­ors in the gar­den will be metallic’s; any­thing sil­ver or gold and the bright col­ors like blue, pur­ple, Kelly green and hot pink.

• Solu­tions for weed and pest con­trols that are safe for the envi­ron­ment, peo­ple and pet friendly will once again be in high demand.

• A tran­quil back­yard retreat is some­thing we are all try­ing to achieve. The use of rocks, nat­ural stone walls and water fea­tures top the list of land­scape design ideas.

• Mov­ing indoors was a hot item last year and will be again in 2013. Add a ter­rar­ium and some house­plants to your list. Indoor plants help purify the air, reduce stress and bring us closer to nature. The long­ing to extend out­doors — indoors.

• Eco­nomic forces are pop­u­lar again this year; such as repur­pos­ing, thrift store finds and recy­cled prod­ucts that can be redesigned for gar­den “object d’art”

• Light­ing will be more fun and adven­tur­ous this com­ing year. Uses of up light­ing, reflec­tive plant mate­r­ial, down light­ing and lights in unusual places. Use your imag­i­na­tion for new light­ing ideas and loca­tions in your yard.

• A new phrase to replace “car­bon foot­print” is “water print.” The need to con­serve water by using drought tol­er­ant plants, orna­men­tal grasses, and natives. Rain gar­dens are once again on the list, as well as rain barrels.

• Com­mu­nity gar­dens, CSA’s and farm mar­kets have become the new gro­cery stores across the coun­try. The pre­dic­tion for this year will be that even more will pop up and more of us will do our shop­ping there dur­ing the grow­ing season.

Susan McCoy says, “Nature has given us the tools to find hap­pi­ness in ordi­nary liv­ing things.” Make 2013 the year to get back to nature and live life to the fullest.

For the entire Gar­den Media gar­den trends 2013 report, visit gardenmedia.com.

Com­mu­nity Gar­den Day planned

Join the Delaware County Mas­ter Gar­den­ers for the annual Com­mu­nity Gar­den Day. This year it will take place on Feb. 9 at the Colum­bus State Com­mu­nity Col­lege Delaware branch.

The event will begin at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. Feb. 9. The reg­is­tra­tion is open to the pub­lic, but reser­va­tions must be made by Feb. 1. To reg­is­ter, call the OSU Exten­sion Office at 740–833-2030 or down­load a reg­is­tra­tion form at delaware.osu.edu and mail to the exten­sion office. Seat­ing is lim­ited, so make sure you sign up soon. The cost is $20 for the day and includes a box lunch, cof­fee and hand­outs. Hope to see you all there for a great day full of gar­den­ing inspiration.

Susan Liechty is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on Jan 11 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.