Now in its 20th year, Garden Media Group has released the 2021 Garden Trends Report. Its theme: The great reset.

In it, Garden Media Group observes, “This is truly the closest shared experience we as a world will ever have, connected to everyone, whether next door or across the globe. We’ll see many changes, but one overarching shift will shape many of them — collective action. And it’s not just the global community that is connecting; the magnifying glass is on communities banding together more than ever. You may have seen this in your community, whether online or in real life. But the shift in community collective is real and it is powerful.

“What’s more, gardens are tools for building more resilient and connected communities and neighborhoods. We're seeing neighbors getting to know each other and helping each other and being available. And a good healthy, garden is full of diversity.”

Trends are valuable when it comes to plant, product or service selection. The following is a portion of what GMG predicts will influence consumers and help the industry with strategic planning. To download the entire report, visit gardenmediagroup.com.

Broadacre cities

One hundred years ago, famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a settlement called Broadacre City. These were super grids of 1-acre+ family homesteads designed to help communities thrive.

Today, the coronavirus is challenging the assumption that Americans must stay physically tethered to high-cost small-space cities to access the best work opportunities. Yes, there was already an exodus from high-priced big cities to more affordable midsize ones, but COVID-19 sped it up.

New York City’s three largest commercial tenants — JP Morgan, Barclays and Morgan Stanley — said it’s unlikely all their employees will return to offices.

Google axed deals for two million square feet of urban office space.

Facebook and Twitter are telling employees they can work remotely forever.

In fact, many newly remote workers prefer somewhere closer to family or fresh air.

If enough remote workers vote with their feet, Broadacre-type cities such as Usonia, New York or Civano, Arizona — with emphasis on community — will be more critical. And they will change our cities and industry.

Workers will get out more during the workday, so public spaces — parks and trails — will become an integral part of daily life, not just after work or on weekends.

Downtown areas will beautify their streets and stores will need interiorscaping to make their space more inviting.

Cultural experiences that allow for freedom of movement, particularly those outdoors — will benefit from increased demand upon reopening.

People will want entertainment and experiences in those outdoor spaces.

There will be even greater demand for houseplants and home office plants, whether people are setting the stage for virtual meeting backdrops or just wanting to improve concentration.

Backyard aficionado

More than half of American adults are spending two additional hours a day outside during quarantine than before the outbreak began.

Research shows we picked up 16 million new gardeners during COVID-19, many of whom are under 35.

These new customers will not stay unless we find ways to make them.

Gardening will become part of their everyday lives, school curriculums and psyche. We need to develop products and bundle items to make gardening easier.

This new gardener is ripe for education, from simple plant lists or Facebook consulting services to new gardeners to install and provide care.

This new gardener cares about growing food.

Edible-garden influencers have seen up to 400% growth on their channels and are being inundated with questions.

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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Timothy Hammond of Big City Gardener would receive one message every few days from a follower. He now receives dozens of questions a day from new gardeners seeking basic tips. He gained 10k followers in 6 weeks.

The new gardener is interested in reducing the lawn. There is a return to the backyard — and it’s not just about the lawn. According to a recent National Garden Bureau survey, 67% of respondents 35 and under shared that, while they want some green lawn, they also desire the rest of their yard planted with a wide variety of other plants.

Landscape architects are seeing families change their lawn preferences, according to a recent poll by the National Wildlife Federation’s Garden for Wildlife initiative. NWF’s Garden for Wildlife initiative encourages Americans to design gardens with food, water, and shelter for wild animals.

Most importantly, they’re interested in reducing stress and increasing health and wellness. Simple ways to incorporate wellness from the comfort of the home or nearby outdoor spaces have taken over as essential practices to maintain connections, release newfound stress, and recuperate some semblance of normalcy.

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Design abundance

Claudia West, ASLA and co-author of “Planting in a Post Wild World,” explains that nature doesn’t live “out there” anymore, because “out there” is gone.

Nature lives in our backyards, in our developments and parking lots or rooftop gardens — or it doesn’t live.

“I truly believe that wildness and nature is a renewable resource and that every single plant we put in the ground can make a difference,” West says. “If you don’t know it, you don’t care for it, and you don’t protect it.”

Source: Garden Media Group

Photo courtesy of WestRock

Over the last 20 years, the plant tag has gone from a way for the grower to label the product to a way for the consumer to gather information on the product. Tags and labels are now about consumer information, why the consumer should buy that product, care and pricing at the point of purchase.

Rick Vulgamott, national director of sales for the horticulture division of WestRock, says tags and labels excel in their role as a silent salesperson.

“One way to help make sure the customer feels a little more comfortable about buying the product is to support their buying decision with features and ‘why buys’ right there at eye level on the plant,” he says.

Bob Lovejoy, president of Hip Labels, shares a story from a recent meeting with the manager of a South Carolina garden center that purchases tags from his company.

“She said, ‘Bob, when we’re busy; 90% of the customers in here don’t get to see somebody face to face. And the plants with tags sell much better, much easier. If there’s no tag on it, people just walk away from it. They don’t know what to do with it.’ So at least in that one situation, the retailer realizes how much value a tag adds to the sales process.”

Lovejoy says that branded tags are playing a huge role in the tags and labels industry — much more than they were 10 years ago. And the reason that’s changed is the consumers themselves are more receptive to branding. Millennials that “finally got up the guts to go to a garden center” are not as price-driven as earlier generations.

“They’re not going to buy a plant for a dollar or two,” he says. “They’re going to buy the plant that looks the best. It has the best instructions and that bodes very well for the branded products.”

In addition to its standard hang tags and stake tags, Hip Labels makes custom pot wraps that are popular with branded plants.

The essential info

What should be on a tag? There are a few things that can help that plant sell itself. Instead of simple care requirements, you want to give the consumer reasons to buy that plant. If it attracts butterflies, or it’s drought-tolerant or deer-resistant, put that on the tag.

Vulgamott says at WestRock, they’ve moved away from information about what not to do. Opt for information that entices the consumer to make a purchase, not warnings that will make them think caring for this plant will be too challenging, which end up driving them to spend their money on something else.

Icons are easily-recognizable images used to present care information: for example, full sun, or shade. They can also be used to detail how much water a plant needs or what its size and shape will be at maturity. WestRock uses icons on almost every tag or label they produce, Vulgamott says.

“It’s our version of a plant emoji,” he says. “People recognize emojis; they therefore recognize icons. Space is limited on a tag or label. So we really have to concisely put the appropriate information on there that the consumer feels comfortable with and will see quickly.”

Tags and labels are just one part of WestRock’s business. The company manufactures POP, along with corrugated packaging, which includes shippers, displays and adhesives all in-house. The point-of-purchase material provides helpful info that sells more plants.

The new gardeners who purchased plants online during the COVID-19 pandemic will need help keeping their purchases alive, and that’s where the tag comes in.

“Our customers are shipping plants to people who can’t spell plant,” Lovejoy says. “They have no idea what they’re buying. They want to have to have it in their apartment or condo, just because it’s cool.”

Lovejoy says these online purchases should be accompanied by not only an informational tag, but growers and retailers should use it as an opportunity to talk about the company plant was purchased from and why you should buy your next plant from them, too.

Innovations in automation

The printing and application of tags and labels is all on the grower’s shoulders. Typically, a retailer will direct the grower to use a label or tags in conjunction with labels. It used to be common to use a tag to convey information to the consumer and a blank white adhesive label with black print to communicate the UPC and price point. They were separate items applied separately.

As labor became a bigger issue, growers needed to find a way to minimize the number of touches to the plant. At the same time, retailers wanted all the information on one component.

“Everybody’s having labor problems and labor costs are just getting out of hand,” says Tony Cook, CEO of Great Lakes Label, the owners and creators of the Label Gator brand of products.

Cook says he’s seen facilities with 50 people applying labels by hand. When it comes to tagging, it’s not abnormal to see eight or nine people per production line handling tagging to keep up with run rates of the other equipment.

The biggest complaint he hears from growers is a lack of labor to tag plants during the production process. And handling the inventory in the tag room is quite a job itself.

“Those (tags) don’t just get to the line themselves,” Cook says. “So they create a make-work program where people are running around trying to get the right tags to the right line.”

There’s also the minimum order question. Many growers have pallets and pallets of boxes of different tags that they can’t use.

“Every grower has at least a 30% obsolescence rate in tags because they have to buy a minimum of a thousand of everything,” Cook says. “They throw away so many tags at the end of the year.”

Lovejoy agrees and says the trends he’s seeing are that growers want to make more frequent orders with smaller amounts. It has forced his company to examine its production methods.

“Shorter runs, quicker turnaround is the way the world is going,” he says. “Not just with tags and labels, but in general, but it’s certainly spilling over into our world.”

Big-box retailers are trimming SKUs, but Lovejoy believes garden centers are adding more in a bid to differentiate themselves. He also says people are getting smart when it comes to inventory. Printer trade practices have allowed for shipping plus or minus 10% on an order. That means if a grower ordered 1,000 tags for a particular plant, the printer could (and usually would) send 1,100. When you multiply that by 400 SKUs, you begin to see how this becomes a logistical problem.

“Over time, inventory gets to be a real issue for growers,” “I have seen tag rooms with hundreds of thousands of dollars of excess inventory that wasn’t ordered, and growers just keep it because they paid for it,” he says. “But when you go towards smaller orders and more frequent orders, you can get away from that type of ordering and just order what you need.”

Labels are growing in popularity due in part to these labor issues. and several companies manufacture machines that can automate the application process. Some growers opt for machines that can print and apply labels in-line to containers. Some prefer to print separately, in a room away from the containers and growing media lines.

WestRock manufactures a line of applicators called RockLine. Label options include partially-printed, fully-printed or print-on-demand labels.

“We know the challenges they have with just-in-time inventory and last-minute requests,” Vulgamott says. “And so we just try to give them the flexibility to execute properly. We can put together the best system in the world, but if we don’t make it easy for the grower to execute, it’s worthless.”

Tony Cook, CEO of Great Lakes Label, has noticed a shift from growers using apply-only machines to those that print and apply. The flexibility of on-demand variable-printing is a great help to growers that sell many different varieties.

“The tag is more than double the price of the label and it can’t be automated,” he says. “So it’s very labor intensive and it’s static information printed on the tag. You have to have an inventory of every single SKU that you sell. But with the label, you may be able to use one label for hundreds of different SKU numbers and variable-print the data on demand as you’re applying the label automatically.”

Cook says another reason businesses are moving away from tags and toward labels is in part because of the recent advances in label printing techniques. From a hot stamp to a cold foil metallic to embossing and tactile coatings that have raised bumps you can feel.

Tags hold a lot of information but can be expensive and require a lot of labor. To fit more info on a label, Label Gator developed expanded content labels that have a hinge on one side and peel open.

And for growers whose retailers still want a tag but with the other advantages of a label, Label Gator created the Lagit, a label with a built-in, peel-off tag. The Lagit can be printed on a Label Gator machine or ordered from the company.

Not every grower will want to invest in a machine to automate this process, and there are other options. Lovejoy says one of the biggest growth areas of his business is digital printing and production. Also, for the last 18 months, Hip Labels has been testing alternative materials for tags and labels, paper-based and non-petroleum-based plastics options. Lovejoy expects this work to play a key role in the company’s future, and believes younger more environmentally-conscious consumers will respond well to the new materials.

Aged pine bark is the one of the most common organic substrate components in the United States, with bark from loblolly (Pinus taeda) or longleaf (Pinus palustris) pines being the most prominent in the Southeastern U.S. Aging is a process in which the bark is piled on the ground in windrows and allowed to age for a period of time, usually six months to one year (although it may be as short as six weeks or as long as 18 months), with no nitrogen amendments. Aging time can vary between suppliers, or even for the same supplier, based on factors such as space allocation/shortages, product demand or preference. The resulting end-products are all sold to the consumer (growers or growing media manufacturers) as “bark substrates,” but these materials can be very different in terms of their physical, chemical and hydrologic properties. Bark suppliers in the Southeast have indicated the demand for fresh pine bark has increased because of its lighter weight and cheaper transportation costs. Although both fresh and aged bark can be used successfully, there have been discrepancies in the literature about negative effects of fresh pine bark on plant growth. Bark substrates, like any organic material, are living/biological and dynamic entities that are continually changing over time, and bark of different ages, which are all sold as “aged bark,” may not have the same properties.

The Horticultural Substrates Lab at North Carolina State University has spent the past several years working to gain a greater understanding of how pine bark substrates are influenced by aging and how/if those changes influence usability and plant production management strategies. A long-term study was implemented to quantify the changes in the physical, chemical, and hydrological properties of pine bark over the course of one year of aging.

Fresh pine bark (within days of being removed from freshly harvested trees) was hammer-milled to pass through a one-half-inch screen (Fig. 1) and placed in three piles of approximately 250 cubic yards each, with dimensions of approximately 55 x 33 x 10.5 feet. These were treated as replications. Piles were sampled initially, then turned every 4 to 6 weeks using a front-end loader and subsequently sampled after turning for a period of 12 months. At each sample date, subsamples were taken from different locations on each pile to account for variation within the pile and to reduce possible errors due to stratification of constituents and conditions within the piles. These subsamples were combined into one representative sample per pile and tested for various physical, chemical and hydrological properties.

Color changes

Over time the changes in bark during the aging process can be seen by the change in color as well as physical texture (Fig. 1). The heat created during the thermophilic phase of the decomposition process causes the color of the bark to darken as it ages. At the beginning of aging (or composting) of organic material the material may be a lighter brown, and as the biological activity increases over time the organic material will become a dark brown or black as the rate of biological activity changes. Color is a sensory parameter that is frequently used anecdotally in the industry when discussing age and usability of pine bark in horticultural substrates but has not been measured in the literature. The measurement of color has recently been suggested as a parameter to determine stability in composting systems. In this long-term aging study, the color of the bark darkened over time as expected, beginning as a reddish brown and getting progressively darker through month 5, eventually stabilizing to a dark brown (Fig. 2). During months 6 through 12 the bark continued to slightly darken each month, which could be noted by careful observation, but were not able to be differentiated using our color chart test methods.

Hydrologic properties

Various techniques and procedures have been developed and utilized over the years to assess and characterize substrate physical and chemical properties. Many of these techniques have been adopted from the soil science world, while others have been specifically developed for the “soilless” substrate industry. As technology and science advances, the use of new techniques is important in more accurately and thoroughly understanding substrates. For the purpose of studying the changes in physical and hydrologic properties of substrates, some of the analysis techniques preformed included wettability/hydration measurements, percolation, water release patterns and assessment of available and unavailable water (Fig. 3).

Percolation of water (referred to as saturated hydraulic conductivity) is one of the most important metrics for soil-water-plant interactions, as well as water solute movement and retention through the soil/substrate profile. Percolation refers to the steady infiltration rate at which water moves through the substrate after a head of water has accumulated on the surface and free drainage is occurring from the bottom. An understanding of substrate percolation can potentially help growers make more informed irrigation decisions. The data obtained from this experiment indicated that percolation rates in pine bark decreased with age. Month 0 bark (fresh) had a water flow rate of 119 cm/min, month 6 bark had a flow rate of 80 cm/min and month 12 bark was recorded at 55 cm/min. This decrease was due to the reductions in bark particle size over time resulting from mechanical breakdown by turning and microbial degradation, as well as an increase in sand content. The smaller particles result in smaller pore sizes and an increased bulk density. The decreased percolation of older bark compared to fresher bark would make significant changes to irrigation practices on a nursery especially if bark of different ages were being used in the same production area.

The “contamination” of pine bark with sand over the course of time is something that is typical at most bark suppliers. Sand can be introduced to aging piles of bark via the wind and during the turning process which occurs regularly (ideally every month). Bark suppliers who are located on sandy soils will likely have more sand incorporation over time than a supplier on clay soil. The amount of sand that accumulated in the bark for this trial increased from 0.43% (by volume) at the beginning (month 0) to 2.00% at month 6 and finally to 3.20% by month 12. Even though the amount of sand is low (by volume) the weight that it adds to the bark can be substantial especially as it relates to shipping. The sand in the bark can also influence the hydrologic properties of the bark by filling larger substrate pores (making them smaller which increases water retention), slowing or increasing percolation, improving wettability, increasing weight/densities, etc. Some growers also choose to add sand (usually around 10%) to their pine bark substrates which can further affect these properties. Growers should consider if the addition of sand to their bark substrates is of benefit to their production management practices or not. A load of bark substrate without sand could allow for significantly more yardage on a truck due to the lighter weight of the product.

Physical properties

The desirable physical characteristics of container substrates can be described in terms of their bulk density, total porosity, container capacity, and air space. The storage and management of pine bark, such as duration of aging, pre-processing conditions, and manufacturing methods can have a great effect on altering these properties. Fresh pine bark has been reported to have higher air space and lower container capacity, and thus lower available water content, when compared to aged bark, which could require changes in irrigation management during crop production. Aged bark will hold more water (unless it is screened) due to an increase in the percentage of fine particles, increased variability of particle sizes, and decreased hydrophobicity due to the decomposition process. In our long-term study we found that over the course of the aging process, container capacity and bulk density increased while air space decreased (Fig. 4). These trends were expected and follow previous studies of aging bark and other organic materials. Total porosity increased between month 0 and 2 from 77% to 83.5%, but there were no differences throughout the remainder of the study, with 12-month old bark having a total porosity value of 83.4%. From 0 to 6 months, air space decreased while container capacity increased. Container capacity, air space, and total porosity did not change from 6 to 12 months. Container capacity increased from 34% at month 0 to 51% at month 12, but did not change significantly from month 6 to 12, while air space decreased from 43% at month 0 to 32% at month 12. Bulk density increased from 0.18 g/cm3 to 0.20 g/cm3, increasing over months 0 through 10 and stabilizing for the remainder of the study. The changes in container capacity, air space, and bulk density correspond to the increase in the percentage of smaller particles as the bark aged.

The demand and use of bark substrates are expected to increase in the coming years due to the forecasted increase in soilless substrate usage. Whether used fresh or aged, these products can be engineered and formulated to offer high quality substrates for container nursery production and for use as a major component in greenhouse mixes as well as hobby (retail) products.

About the authors: Brian Jackson is an associate professor and director of the Horticultural Substrates Laboratory at NC State University, Brian_Jackson@ncsu.edu. Laura was a former graduate student at NCSU.

Like a cloud of confetti, tiny white flowers (sometimes touched with pale blue) appear from early summer to fall on this plant. Undemanding and dependable, it provides the perfect foil for other summer bloomers and foliage. These marvelous characteristics convinced the Perennial Plant Association to take notice and name Calamintha nepeta subsp. nepeta the 2021 Perennial Plant of the Year.

While durable and pest-free, Calamintha nepeta subsp. nepeta also checks two important boxes for gardeners: bees and other pollinators work the flowers throughout the summer and the aromatic foliage (think: mint) is deer-resistant.

This full-sun perennial has a low mounding or bushy habit, ideal for the front of the border, in rock gardens or along rock walls, as well as in containers. Or use it to underplant leggy perennials such as Echinacea. In the landscape it grows 12-15 inches tall and 12-24 inches wide. It’s hardy in Zones 5-9 and grows best in full sun.