Sadly , I do n’t cerebrate bulb forcing will ever be much of a tendency for home gardeners .
As much as I respect the workplace of industry groups that care to avail both clients and consumers by putting together nicely package trend news report — which I learn — it just seems like the real macrocosm of gardeners is messier , more various , and more interesting . ( At least gardening trend reports are n’t as goofy as Pantone ’s annual colouring announcements . )
This twelvemonth , I find that announced trends from Garden Media Group pay many similarity with realness as well as important conflict . I palpate more confident in saying this than in previous days , having conducted my own observation of 4,000 gardeners in our local Facebook mathematical group over the last eighteen months .
Sadly, I don’t think bulb forcing will ever be much of a trend for home gardeners.
The most important while of trend info is National Gardening Association ’s survey testify that 16 million new gardener joined our ranks during COVID-19 , many of them under 35 . I take all the NGA ’s surveys with a cereal of saltiness , but I ’ll accept about two third of that number , which is still impressive . I do n’t know about all the twenty - something gardeners come online . Houseplants , yes , a resounding yes . Gardening out of doors ? Not so much .
But , yes , there are many , many more people gardening in my region than there were before . They look to our group for information and advice from more experienced gardeners , which they receive . They also look to YouTube TV , memes , the Old Farmers Almanac ( online ) and a bunch of other web site , most very world-wide and often misleading . I cogitate the videos put up the good counsel . Do I wish more newbie gardeners would read Good Book ? Yes . Do I think they will ? No .
Many of the incoming solid food growers are looking to seed - starting and seed swapping . They ’re putting together inexpensive greenhouses , and , over the past six calendar month , I have seen telling baskets of vegetables place by many . This was predicted years ago , but did n’t quite explode in the fashion it is now .
The other correctly place trend of signification is providing habitat . You ’ll never find a Certified Wildlife Habitat sign in my K ; I ’d rather purchase a duet pollinator - friendly perennials with the twenty sawhorse . My sense is that these incoming gardeners are n’t that interested in sign ; what they do need to see are butterflies , bees , and shuttlecock , and they do n’t mind planting a mussy patch of swamp milkweed to help with that . Not too messy , though . Many of these gardeners want to leave repeated corpse through the crepuscule , but ca n’t stand the way it all looks . There is a inborn propensity toward tidiness that is in eternal opposite to the desire to provide household for wildlife . I do n’t suppose this battle will ever go by . I also do n’t remember the whim to hit into the kitchen console for Dawn soap , bloodless vinegar , and Irish Spring as gardening helpers will ever go away either .
To make a sweeping generalisation of my own , the unexampled nurseryman will experiment until they get at similar compromises to those of older generation . What ’s too much worry ? What ’s most attractive ? What am I delight the most ? The answer to those questions will always be too various to fit into a lean of course .
