PHS Shares Top 10 Gardening Trends for 2025

January 6, 2025 – PHILADELPHIA, PA – As we enter the new year, The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), an established gardening resource for almost 200 years, is unveiling its top 10 gardening trends for 2025. Renowned as the producer of the iconic PHS Philadelphia Flower Show and a leader in horticultural innovation, PHS highlights emerging trends that span floral, landscape, and ornamental design, as well as houseplants and vegetable gardening. Gardeners nationwide can look to PHS for inspiration and expert guidance in the year ahead and see many of these trends in practice at the Flower Show, taking place March 1-9, 2025.  

“These 2025 gardening trends aggregate a mix of ideas and approaches stemming from our observations attending professional conferences, exhibitions, visiting countless personal and public gardens, and conversations with horticultural professionals. They are a fantastic reflection of what gardeners are focusing on right now, and the direction the industry at large is headed. From professionals to the beginner gardener, these trends offer inspiration and education that everyone can take something away from.” said PHS’s Vice President of Horticulture, Andrew Bunting. 

This list of top 10 trends provides gardeners of all experience levels with inspiration, education, and exploration in the garden.

As we enter the new year and a time of preparation and planning for your spring garden, now is the perfect time to explore new gardening ideas and utilize resources like the PHS Gardener's Blog for learning and indulging all your gardening curiosities.

Top 10 Gardening Trends of 2025 

1. Tropical Foliage - While many may think drama in the garden comes from bountiful blooms, impactful foliage can be just as stunning. Incorporating plants with great foliage is a simple way to create long-lasting ornament in a home garden, stoop garden, containers, or window boxes. With the introduction of new annual and tropical foliage plants, there are more options than ever to create a great accent in the summer garden, adding unique color and seasonal flair. 

Plant Options: 

• Colocasia, elephant ears - Pharaohs Mask®, Redemption™, Royal Hawaiian® ‘Waikiki’ 

• Coleus - Talavera™ ‘Sienna,’ ChargedUp™ ‘Campfire’ 

• Caladium 

• Begonias 

2. Influencing the Garden - Garden influencers are taking social media by storm, sharing exciting, educational content on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube. Influencers such as Summer Rayne Oakes (@HomesteadBrooklyn) inspire gardeners with creative, snack-sized tips while organizations like PHS offers expert advice (@PHSGardening) through gardening “How-Tos,” demonstrations, plant recommendations, and more to help gardeners cultivate their green thumb. 

3. Bringing Nature Home - Inspired by Doug Tallamy’s influential book of the same name, this trend emphasizes climate-friendly, ecologically diverse, home gardening that anyone can implement. With climate change and its effects becoming increasingly prominent, gardeners around the world are turning to approaches that preserve, protect, and restore local ecosystems through incorporating native and pollinator plant species, and adopting climate-friendly maintenance strategies. While many gardeners see winter as one of the dreariest times of year in the garden, this trend champions the importance of year-round gardening, and positions winter as the ideal time for education and planning to ensure you’re set up for success come spring. 

Resources such as The PHS Gardeners Blog, and PHS’s educational programming are great places to start this education journey and discover new approaches and inspiration in gardening.  

Below are just a few trending ways that gardening can promote environmental stewardship: 

• Movements like “Leave the Leaves” have promoted using leaves as a natural mulch, which also provides habitat for overwintering insects.  

• Planting native plants like milkweeds, Asclepias; mountain mints, Pycnanthemum, and a host of native asters is a great way to attract native moths, butterflies, wasps and other beneficial insects to your garden.  

• Protecting bees via “bee hotels,” pans of water, the reduction of lawn, and creating other intentional habitat helps provide homes to over 300 species of native bees. 
   

4. Gardens under Glass - Creating gardens under glass is making a comeback among houseplant enthusiasts. Ranging from simple terrariums to large-scale greenhouses, the interest in gardening using a glass environment has boomed. For those with minimal space or light, terrarium gardens offer a technique to display plants with a particularly unique, personalized, and aesthetic flair. Additionally, because of the enclosed nature of terrariums, they become a micro-ecosystem, allowing you to grow fascinating carnivorous plants and humidity-loving varieties on something as small as a windowsill.  

Plant Options: 

• Begonias 

• Gesneriads 

• Ferns 

• Selaginella, spikemoss 

• Fittonia, nerveplant 

• Peperomia 

• Pilea 

5. On the Wall - Living, “green” walls and vertical gardens are popping up as both outdoor and indoor installations. Green walls are especially popular in office buildings and other public spaces, and many incorporate amazing displays of tropical plants. This trend is a great option for gardeners looking to up the aesthetic impact of an indoor space and add a touch of artistic greenery to a room.  

Plant Options: 

• Outdoor green walls: sedum, Heuchera, hens and chicks, sedges, Liriope 

• Indoor green walls: Bromeliads, tropical ferns, pothos, kalanchoe, Philodendron, and Monstera 
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6. Urban Gardening - Gardening is no longer thought of as a suburban or rural activity. Urban gardening is flourishing as city-dwellers transform small spaces—courtyards, stoops, window boxes, and containers—into vibrant gardens. Community gardens — where people join a shared public gardening space, are also booming, offering access to fresh food, cultural preservation, and shared joy. Meanwhile, efforts to plant fruit trees and expand street tree canopies through community-led stewardship are bringing greenery, resilience, and health benefits to urban neighborhoods across the U.S. 

7. Horticulture as Therapy - Gardening is gaining recognition as a powerful tool for wellness, with research showing its benefits for mental health and overall well-being. As awareness of mental health grows, hospitals and healthcare systems are increasingly using horticulture for healing. For professionals and amateurs alike, the connection between plants and mental health is inspiring more people to cultivate greenery for both ecological and personal enrichment. 

8. Water-wise Gardening - As droughts and climate change impact more regions, water-wise gardening is gaining traction worldwide, even in parts of the world that are not known for being extremely arid. For home gardeners feeling frustrated with the constant maintenance of watering and keeping their gardens thriving in increasingly dry climates, waterwise gardening offers a solution. From designing full gravel and crevice gardens, to simply incorporating drought-tolerant plants, this sustainable approach reduces maintenance and helps create resilient gardens, even with increasing periods of drought. 

Plant Options:  

• Cacti 

• Succulents 

• Ornamental grasses 

​​​​​​​9. The Houseplant Phenomenon - Since the COVID-19 pandemic, houseplants have become a global obsession, making gardening accessible for anyone, regardless of space. From homes to offices, houseplants bring beauty and wellness indoors. Dedicated societies like the Gesneriad, Begonia, and Aroid Societies reflect the enduring appeal of this green trend and offer houseplant enthusiasts outlets to engage with other plant lovers to share knowledge. 

Plant Options:  

• Aroids such as Anthurium, Philodendron, Monstera 

• Sansevieria snake plant 

• Ficus shivereana 

• Hoya 

10.  Backyard Fruit - Growing fruit is gaining popularity alongside vegetable gardening, appealing to both professionals and hobbyists. Many gardeners are incorporating fruit trees to combine delicious harvests with garden beauty. 

Plant Options:  

• Diospyros kaki, Asian persimmon 

• Diospyros virginiana, American persimmon 

• Asimina triloba, ‘paw paw’ 

• Amelanchier canadensis, serviceberry 

• Pomegranates, which were once thought to be a subtropical or Mediterranean tree, are now hardy and fruit producing in USDA zone 7. 

• Fruit Snacks™ is a new line of apple tree cultivars from Plants Nouveau which have been selected for their upright and diminutive stature. 

• Bushel and Berry® is a series of compact berry plants including blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. 

ABOUT PENNSYLVANIA HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY  
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), an internationally recognized nonprofit organization founded in 1827, uses horticulture to advance the health and well-being of the Greater Philadelphia Region. PHS programs create healthier living environments, increase access to fresh food, expand access to jobs and economic opportunity, and strengthen deeper social connections between people. PHS’s work spans 250 neighborhoods; an expansive network of public gardens and landscapes; year-round learning experiences; and the nation’s signature gardening event, the Philadelphia Flower Show. PHS provides everyone with opportunities to garden for the greater good as a participant, member, donor, or volunteer. For information and to support this impactful work, please visit PHSonline.org.  

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