Over the past few years, gardening has become a very popular and beloved hobby around the world. As people were forced to spend a lot of time indoors, they had to find ways to feel connected to nature, to destress, and to feel more relaxed. As it turns out, gardening is a perfect solution. Watching plants grow, interacting with them, and enjoying their blooms are great remedies for feeling under the weather. If you’ve recently discovered home horticulture, you might be curious to learn about some of the coolest trends for 2022. Keep reading to find out!
Trend #1 Wildlife Gardens
Wildlife gardens are fascinating and are growing in popularity. A wildlife garden or a wild garden is an environment that is welcoming and beneficial for the local wildlife and that is tended by a gardener. You can easily create a wild garden in your outdoor area by growing native plants and by protecting and creating habitats for native birds, reptiles, insects, amphibians, mammals, etc. The key to wild gardens is finding the balance between human intervention and natural processes.
You might be tempted to think that a wildlife garden doesn’t require any human intervention, but that is not true. There are many things that the gardener can do to promote biodiversity in the garden such as providing shelter for animals, installing bird feeding stations, increasing plant diversity, adding a source of water, and installing bug boxes and bee hotels. It is also important to avoid using any chemicals and pesticides and to focus on organic solutions for any problems you might encounter along the way.
Trend #2 Low Carbon Gardens
The concept of low carbon gardening is extremely interesting and beneficial for the environment and it can go hand in hand with wildlife gardens. As gardeners, there are many different things that we can do in our gardens to increase the amount of carbon that our garden absorbs. But, if we are not careful, we might end up returning the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere by doing certain things that might seem harmless. For instance, using artificial fertilizers, using petrol-powered lawnmowers, and using artificial planters and materials are all examples of actions that are harmful to the environment.
In low carbon gardening, the aim is to avoid all of these things and find beneficial alternatives. Growing long-lived plants is a great alternative to growing annuals or lawns that require regular maintenance. Layering trees, shrubs, and perennials is a great strategy and it means less replanting, fewer materials used, and fewer power tools. To minimize your gardening carbon footprint you can also harvest rainwater and make a rain garden, transform your garden into a wildlife garden, plant a lot of trees, make your compost, grow your food organically, use hand tools instead of power tools, etc.
Trend #3 Grow Your Own
Another important trend that’s becoming more present in the gardening world is growing your own food. This trend has become an important movement on social media and there are millions of posts on social media platforms that use the hashtag ‘growyourown’. Growing fruits and veggies isn’t just an amazing way to obtain fresh and healthy produce, but it is also an educational tool that you can use to educate your children about how food is made.
You might be tempted to think that growing your food can only be done if you have a large garden, but that isn’t the case. You can try your hand at growing a herb garden on your balcony, and you can even grow fruits and veggies in containers. So, the truth is, you don’t need to have a lot of space to try your hand at growing organic food. The important thing is to avoid using harmful chemicals, to encourage biodiversity, to use companion planting, and to focus on building and maintaining soil health.
If you have plenty of garden space and you want to start growing your food, you should also consider investing in a garden shed. Garden sheds are eco-friendly outbuildings made entirely of slow-grown Nordic spruce, harvested from sustainable forests. By keeping all of your garden furniture, gardening tools, and equipment in your garden shed, you prologue their life and avoid buying new ones each year.
Gardening is a great activity that has a lot of benefits for you and the surrounding environment. The three trends mentioned above are great ways to improve your current strategies and to help you create a healthy ecosystem that will benefit you, your family, and your local flora and fauna. If you love growing plants, you’ll surely be amazed by the amazing results that you’ll get by working with nature.
