Every year, we see amazing new landscaping trends that inspire us to revitalize our outdoor living spaces.  A home is so much more than just the interior rooms.   It’s also the space outside your home, where you can enjoy time with friends and family.  I love gardening and just enjoying the nature and the beauty that surrounds me.  So, today I’m sharing gardening tips on landscaping trends.

2018 brings us landscaping trends that focus on turning the exterior of our homes into a true living space, for humans and wildlife. 2018 incorporated new plants and encouraged the integration of edibles and non-edible plants!

1.   Embracing Multipurpose Spaces

Credit: Garden Design Magazine

Your backyard doesn’t have to be just for the kids to play or just where you grow veggies. Embrace multipurpose – everything in your backyard should have several uses.

A seat can also be a storage location for gardening tools or toys for your kids. A concrete fireplace can also serve as a planter or as a way to grill food by adding hooks for a grate. Garden Design Magazine shows us this beautiful fireplace that also serves as a place for family and friends to gather together. When you add elements to your landscape and yard, make sure they aren’t just a one purpose item.

Remember that your fence can be a place to hang flowering baskets or an area that a plant can grow upwards.

2.   Water Management

Credit: Love Your Landscape

Sustainability is a popular word right now, and it no longer just means focusing on a sustainable lifestyle. A sustainable landscape influences how landscapes are created and maintained, especially when you focus on the years to come. One of the major trends in 2018 is focusing on eco-friendly watering practices

If you haven’t heard of xeriscaping, now is the time to learn about. Xeriscaping is about how to create a landscape that uses low-water plants and focusing on plants native to that particular region. It also uses trees and shade plants properly, as well as creating dry streams to utilize rainwater better.

Another trend that goes along with water management is incorporating succulents into the landscape. These plants come in exotic and fun shapes and forms. The benefit of using succulents in landscaping is that they are easy to maintain and create a fun statement. They are great for new gardeners!

3.   Colorful Plants

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Credit: Love Your Landscape

Who wants a garden with just green or boring colored plants? Not you! 2018 brought us landscaping trends that jump with vibrant and creative plants. At one time, a garden of simple greenery was in, but this year, we saw landscape designers integrating plants with color like violets, verbena, iris, clematis, and other vibrant plants.

Another trend is using patterned plants that might have stripes or over intricate details. It wasn’t unusual to see plants with striped leaves or colored veins.

Some other exciting plants in the latest landscaping trends include:

• Onyx Red Ornamental Pepper
• Queeny Lime Orange Zinnia
• Prima Ginger Coneflower
• Rockin’ Deep Purple Salvia
• Bee Balm
• Sky’s Edge Scutellaria

4.   Creating Natural Habitats for Wildlife

Credit: Garden Design Magazine

Everyone knows that our bees are in danger, but did you know that our native pests and birds also need a home to live? Butterflies are on the decline, and habitat loss is a huge factor in the decline. Even frogs and turtles feel the loss!

As cities and suburbs continue to grow and expand, species are losing their homes. For years, gardeners and landscapers created designs without little thought to the wildlife. Now, landscapers realized that there is no reason that we cannot create beautiful, thoughtful landscapes that also meet the needs of the local wildlife, especially the ones in danger.

It isn’t unusual for people to create landscapes specifically for animals and wildlife. For example, you can include different plants that are loved by the monarch beautiful and become a verified monarch butterfly garden, where they might stop on their great migration.

 Here’s how you can create a habitat for wildlife:

• Create seed-producing and berry-bearing plants
• Don’t use any insecticides or pesticides
• Replace some of your lawn
• Don’t clear out your plants in the fall, allowing insects to overwinter in your garden

Make sure you include plenty of bee-friendly flowers in your landscaping to encourage pollination. Pollinators can also increase the yield of your flowering veggie crops like cucumbers, melons, and squash. Bees love flowers like zinnias, nasturtiums, alyssum, cosmos, and calendula. Calendula is also a well-known medicinal herb.

2018 brought the integration of new edibles, perennials, and funky plants to landscapes, commonly known as “food-scaping”, according to WikiLawn Fort Worth. Gardeners are more and more likely to experiment with new plants and finding cool ways to showcase the plants.

Right now, vertical gardens are hot! Grow a funky new cucumber variety up your privacy fence or grow pole green beans – that aren’t always green – along with your pergola.

There is a whole world of plants that you can grow. Perennial plants are a huge hit in 2018. Plant them one time and they continue to grow each year. Did you know there are perennial veggies, like asparagus and rhubarb? A single asparagus plant can produce for 20 years! That’s a lot of veggies!  Don’t you love this landscaping trend idea?

Try things like cucamelons, which are the size of grapes but taste like cucumbers. Plant a few ground cherries that are in the nightshade family but can be used to create pies and jams. So, experiment! Add new plants you’ve never tried before. It makes for an exciting and unique landscape.

Jackie Greene is a blogger, gardener, and nutrition enthusiast. She enjoys creating organic meals for family and friends using the fresh ingredients she produces from her backyard homestead.