A couple of days ago, I reported on how vegetable gardening continues to be a big trend. You’ll see it in garden centers in the form of garden boxes for planting, patio-sized plants and lots of articles on using edibles in an ornamental way. (Side note: Enough with the chard already! It’s great stuff, but aren’t there other vegetables that can be planted in an ornamental way?)

Two other trends come to mind after seeing three home and garden shows in the past month: color and vertical gardening.

Color will come in plants, of course, and you’ll see lots of tangerines, bright yellows and hot pinks in the blooms of plants such as tulips and begonias. But you will also see it in decor. For instance, MSHS sold these small, bright, easy to install birdbaths at both the Minneapolis and St. Paul home shows. Other vendors were selling these simple plastic pots in bright colors. Expect to see bright shade in containers and other kinds of garden ornaments.

Growing UP!

Many different kinds of apparatus are being marketed now to allow vertical gardening. At one garden show, I saw several systems that were intended to function as space dividers as well as places to grow plants. Most of these have vertical supports with troughs for plants and soil. Vertical systems work great for those with limited space and they are more accessible for folks who don’t want all the bending of an in-ground garden. Because they are containers, they likely need more watering and fertilizing than in-ground gardens.