2022 is another great year to indulge your gardening desires, with a variety of new planting trends to make your garden easier to maintain and enjoy. From incorporating stone walls and balconies to creating meadow gardens and edible yards, there is a planting plan for everyone this upcoming year. Whether your goal is to save money, help the environment, enjoy your outdoor space more or make your property as functional as possible, Mayer Tree Service is a leader in creating the perfect outdoor spaces to suit client needs. Learn how you can integrate some of the planting trends for 2022 into your perfect outdoor environment.
The Top Ten Planting Trends for 2022
While 2021 was a surprisingly big year for gardening and landscaping projects for professionals and homeowners alike, 2022 is also shaping up to be another year to make your yard into the perfect outdoor paradise. Whether you’re a novice gardener or a seasoned green thumb, it’s always a good idea to be aware of certain planting trends so that you can include the latest and greatest in your outdoor design. For those looking for some consultation or professional assistance in developing and installing the perfect outdoor setting, Mayer Tree Service has the experience, expertise and equipment to bring the latest trends to you. Let’s look at some of the top ten planting trends for 2022 to see what might work for your property.
STONE WALLS
Stone walls have seen a surprising surge in popularity relative to recent trends in outdoor gardening. This could be to the rustic charm inherent to stone walls as well as their versatility as a design element and as a functional component of your outdoor space. Stone walls can be dry-stacked to form a border or partial border around your property as well as to form a partial or complete border around sensitive vegetation; one of the unique properties of stone is that it absorbs heat, which can create a different microclimate for your backyard and allow you to grow plants slightly out of climate but which are sheltered by your rock enclosure. Stone walls can be used as retaining walls on steep property, either as single walls that run along a slope or as segments that can be built up and filled with soil and planted into. Stone walls can also be mortared in place and be used as another border wall, with the mortar being more accommodating of non-linear patterns, or with built-in seating areas. Finally, stone walls can integrate animal habitat features, such as bee or bird boxes, that enhance the natural elements of your outdoor space, if filled with soil or used as a retaining wall, they can also serve as sites where you directly plant into a wall.
Cottage Garden
A cottage garden remains another popular design concept because of its more free-flowing form that integrates as many different plants as possible, with emphasis on native as well as traditional ornamental plants. Cottage gardens are great for showcasing more visible floral effects, such as peonies, gardenias, and hibiscus, with more aromatic species, such as lavender, lilac, and rose. The great, unifying theme about cottage gardens is that they are more subject to personal preference and accommodate paths, seating areas, native plants, and traditional garden favorites. Whether placed directly in front of your home, on the side, or in your backyard, cottage gardens are a great way to blend all of your favorites into a harmonious outdoor space.
Outdoor Kitchen/vegetable garden
With eating healthier on everyone’s mind, having a convenient garden located right outside one’s home is hard to beat. A vegetable garden, or a kitchen garden that focuses more on herbs, can blend in with ornamental plants in a cottage garden form or feature neat rows as may be found in more traditional vegetable gardens. Once again, preference is the direction for this project, and vegetable gardens can feature everything from raised beds, mulched paths, and drip irrigation to a neatly defined, well-nourished patch in your backyard that subtly integrates into the surrounding vegetation.
Wild Garden/ Meadow Garden
For those with more space or who just want to be completely immersed in nature, a wild garden or meadow garden may be the trend for you. Wild gardens and meadow gardens are variations on the theme of using natural, diversified landscaping methods that cater more to patterns found in nature that inherently require little to no maintenance or outside inputs such as fertilizer or pesticides. Wild gardens can feature a forest feel that integrates taller trees, understory, vining plants with shrubs and herbaceous plants or a more subtle feel that uses individual plants spaced further apart for a more stark contrast. Meadow gardens are more strictly oriented to growing wildflowers or herbaceous plants that might be found in more pastoral settings. Both wild and meadow gardens can be combined and juxtaposed to feature the benefits of both in your yard.
Wildlife/ Sustainable garden
Once again, the desire to be immersed in nature drives this trend to create wildlife and sustainable gardens. While very similar to wild or meadow gardens, wildlife and sustainable gardens can incorporate different themes that might not be featured in a wilder setting. For example, wildlife gardens might feature bird feeders and birdbaths to accommodate avian visitors, bee boxes and bat boxes to accommodate these species, and even a small pond or water feature to cultivate aquatic plants as well as visiting insects such as damselflies. Likewise, selecting for nectar-rich plants will bring more butterflies and activity to a wildlife-themed garden. Similarly, sustainable gardens feature native plants but also include various features that promote minimal inputs into a garden. For example, designing a rain catchment garden system under a downspout, or in proximity to a rain barrel, reduces water inputs, while using rocks to create a xeriscaping effect can create habitats for more drought-tolerant plants such as prickly pear. In some instances, you may even be able to create a habitat that can accommodate more tropical plants, climate permitting.
Hot tubs
For stay-at-home luxury, it’s hard to beat a hot tub. Enhancing the hot tub feel is landscaping that brings nature to you. Depending on the location and design of your hot tub, you can incorporate some of the above-mentioned features. You can build a small rock wall to enclose your hot tub that is then surrounded by small shrubs or herbaceous plants, ferns, or even small trees to create a forested effect. Using native grasses or taller herbaceous plants, even flowering herbs such as rosemary and lavender can create a more enhanced experience while you go for a soak. The general rule with hot tub gardening is to keep the vegetation minimal and accommodating, as no one wants to be whacked with a branch or pricked with a thorn while emerging from a hot tub.
CONTAINER GARDENING
Container gardening is always a popular trend, and balconies and porches make great places to showcase lush containers that can feature everything from daffodils to small conifers and citrus trees. Likewise, boxes hung from railings are great ways to accentuate the features of a balcony or even an enclosed porch, while the railings and surrounding structures make great surfaces to grow climbing plants, particularly wisteria or honeysuckle. For the truly ambitious, porches and balconies can also be used as mini-trellises to grow everything from tomatoes to grapes and passionfruit.
Dark and bi-color plants
Dark and bi-color plants have become a popular garden theme because they simultaneously offer stark contrasts as well as colorful diversity within the overall garden design. Examples of dark-foliage plants to include in your garden include crape myrtle, heuchera, and sweet potato vine, with Japanese maple being a quality tree to include that accommodates many yards. For the uniqueness of bi-color foliage and flowering plants, try bi-color tulips, petunias, and marigolds among other options.
4-season gardening
4-season gardening brings together many of the features above to maximize the appeal of your garden. Native plants, ornamentals, outdoor features and accessibility all combine to influence how multi-dimensional your landscape can be. For example, including perennials with colorful flowers and unique vegetation, such as rhododendrons, hydrangeas or spirea, can enhance your outdoor space, while crabapples, flowering cherries and blueberries provide combinations of unique foliage, flowers, wildlife appeal and even eating opportunities; colorful bark and structure also helps to magnify the starkness of winter. As with native and sustainable gardening, choosing a variety of plants with an emphasis on perennials and small, flowering shrubs and trees will help to make your garden dynamic all year long
Urban trees
Even in the urban landscape, a tree of some size can fit and provide the unique benefits that trees present. For truly small yards, dwarf trees, including dwarf fruit trees, make great additions to a yard that enhance the curb appeal and make maintaining your property much easier. With more space, there’s more possibility. You can choose from trees to form natural fences and screens, trees with floral or foliar appeal, or trees that allow you to enjoy some shade or a place to hang a swing on a summer day. Whether you select a small understory tree such as a Japanese maple or dogwood or a larger tree such as willow or cherry, there’s a tree for you regardless of where you live.
WHICH OF THE TOP 10 PLANTING TRENDS OF 2022 IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
From turning your backyard into a stay-at-home retreat to making your yard as sustainable and functional as possible, there are a multitude of planting trends to choose from this year. Mayer Tree Service-Essex and Mayer Tree Service-Lincoln offer full-service landscaping to help you create the perfect outdoor experience. We hope that you’ve found some inspiring ideas and look forward to how we can help you in 2022.
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