As we slowly inch toward the end of the year, we can look back on horticulture trends that shaped the market. 2024 was a period of innovation, environmentalism, and creativity.
Cultivators embraced the unusual, crafting gardens ornate with wildly vivid and enticing plants. City-dwellers adapted practices to their urban domain, leveraging indoor farming to better meet the needs of the greater community. These examples are just the beginning of a massive shift toward a bright future for agriculture.
Based on knowledge gained from Cultivate 2024 and current research, we’ll explore eight exciting movements and concepts that showcase the uncapped ability of horticulturists to wow the world (and improve) with their skills.
1. Horticulture Technology & Automation
Artificial intelligence is rapidly taking foot in industries across the spectrum. From content marketing to manufacturing to agriculture, AI can help streamline and automate production procedures to improve the bottom line.
In horticulture and cultivation, automation can be imperative to plant growth. Recent developments in indoor environmental controls allow growers to provide crops with optimized nutrient supplementation, humidity levels, light, and regulated temperature–all while reducing water and energy consumption.
Even outdoor farmers can benefit from AI. Some applications on the market use satellite, drone, or sensor data to analyze soil and crops for moisture levels, contaminants, pests, and overall health. Other systems can provide real-time analytics on imminent weather, offering cultivators sufficient time to take preparatory action.
While agricultural AI is headlining in 2024, the market value will continue to rise, with projections showing a global value of $7.1 billion by 2030.
2. Plants & Mental Health
Researchers suggest indoor and outdoor plants can positively impact overall well-being. Greenery is a natural stress reliever, especially for those in windowless spaces.
So, how are horticulturists incorporating mental health into their business approaches?
For garden store owners, providing education is one way to empower self-betterment and vitality. Businesses can host live demonstrations or expert forums on achieving pleasing, welcoming ambiances at home or work. Focusing on the benefits of specific fragrant flora, such as lavender, lemon balm, or chamomile, can help customers determine which seeds will best fulfill their wellness goals.
Cultivators can gear efforts toward fostering relationships with local mental or physical wellness centers like hospitals, therapy clinics, or rehab centers. The hope is creating vibrant landscapes at these facilities will promote healing while also improving society.
3. Stronger, Drought-Resistant, & More Resilient Plants
Climate is unpredictable. Sure, we can “predict” certain weather conditions, but even our most data-driven guesses can fall prey to Mother Nature’s whim.
Uncertainty can be detrimental to agriculturists. One hail storm, heat wave, or flood can destroy entire crops, thus affecting operations, profits, and supply chains. Unfortunately, such financial strain can break once thriving farms.
Luckily, horticulturists have identified ways to help protect yields from utter destruction. While not a “cure-all” solution (as Mother Nature will always outsmart humans), developing and cultivating resilient plant varieties can guard against some losses for outdoor farmers.
4. Horti-Futurism
Seeing as AI and technology are trending in 2024, what better way to emulate recent innovations than futuristic cultivation techniques?
Enter “Horti-Futurism.”
While attending Cultivate, speakers Becky Paxton, Corrina Murray, and KariAnne Wood gave us a valuable behind-the-scenes look into this movement with their segment “Translating Social Media Trends.”
Agriculturists and home-growers alike are capitalizing on the turn toward the avant-garde by creating landscapes fit for any sci-fi movie–think cyber lime, light-reflecting, or polka dot plant varieties. Flora like moonflowers, primroses, money plants, and night-blooming jasmine can add that je ne sais quoi element to any space.
In the same vein, automation enhances the ultramodern vibe. Smart planters, vertical gardens, and app-controlled environmental controls blend technology with nature to create unique, stimulating, and whimsical topography.
5. Dark, Moody Spaces
On the opposite side of Horti-futurism lies the dark, gothic, and moody horticultural world. “Delight in the Dark” incorporates Victorian-era aesthetics, hanging vines, and faded blossoms to cultivate creative, emotional spaces.
Instead of propelling spectators into the future, cultivators use eerie elements to inspire a feeling of stepping back in time to a bygone age. An aura of mystery effortlessly sets storefronts and homes apart from the neighboring buildings.
Gothic gardening perhaps appeals to so many for the ability to design hidden refuges. In a world driven by technology, these havens can allow growers to relax in silent solitude, free from any urgency or commotion.
6. Sustainable Growing Methods
Horticulturists are taking an active curiosity in more sustainable cultivation practices to lower their environmental footprints. These methods aim to minimize carbon emissions, reduce resource consumption, nurture biodiversity, and develop healthier soil for future generations.
Here are a few ways agriculturists are working to promote sustainability:
- Planting perennials: Perennials boost soil health by preventing erosion, retaining nutrients, and providing aeration. They can also keep weeds at bay, thereby eliminating the overapplication of supplemental fertilizers and herbicides.
- Reducing tillage: Using no- or reduced-till planting methods helps farmers avoid soil disturbances that can lead to erosion and poor structure.
- Utilizing integrated pest management (IPM): IPM uses biological, mechanical, and chemical techniques to mitigate pest problems while reducing the need for harsh chemicals. In turn, these methods improve soil and water quality, increase yield, and reduce the spread of disease via insects.
- Rotating crops: Crop rotation encourages soil fertility while keeping microbial happy and well-fed. Additional benefits include reduced chemical use, pests, diseases, and soil erosion.
- Agroforestry: Practicing agroforestry protects biodiversity by offering plants and critters shade and shelter from the elements. Productive fruit trees can provide additional revenue, too!
7. Urban Farming
Available agricultural space is declining as populations and demands for housing skyrocket. As a result, more and more urban farms are taking form in our cities.
With the development of vertical farming, growers can turn vacant warehouses, shipping containers, and smaller facilities into thriving ecosystems. Growing upward allows them to triple or quadruple yields, aiding efforts to supply communities with organically grown produce.
Another advancement in urban agriculture is tree cultivation. Naturally, densely populated areas are more susceptible to the effects of climate change, such as air pollution and rising temperatures. Trees can help lessen these impacts by providing shade, oxygen production, and carbon storage. Better yet, as noted, increased greenery translates into increased positivity!
8. Peat-Free Plants
Rising concerns about climate change have impacted the overarching opinion of peat-based growing media. Generally, peat farming is far from sustainable for various reasons.
Firstly, these crops grow slowly and are hydrophobic, often requiring constant fertilization and nutrient supplementation. In the end, runoff from harvesting can pollute water quality with sediments, carbon, and metals.
Secondly, the extraction process releases substantial amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further contributing to the climate crisis. Peatlands are also home to numerous native birds, reptiles, insects, and mammals–harvesting entire bogs robs these critters of their ecosystem. Sadly, most peat crops cannot recover from such destruction.
Luckily, horticulturists and cultivators can explore multiple alternative substrates. Studies show pine bark, coco coir, and wood-based materials are all eco-friendly, renewable, and easily accessible planting media. Ultimately, banding together to facilitate simple changes to the growing process can have monumental effects.
Conclusion
2025 is quickly approaching, reining in a new year of growth for the horticulture industry. While the industry continues to change, one thing is for certain—cultivators are our biggest asset. Their work to create a better tomorrow and environment is both necessary and beneficial. How could we not be excited about what lies just over the horizon?