Garden trends for 2024-2025: which direction for the landscape world?
The garden trends consultancy Chlorosphere presented their outlook for the sector at Paysalia 2023.
The garden trends consultancy Chlorosphere presented their outlook for the sector at Paysalia 2023. Who are tomorrow's consumers? Which key issues will drive landscaping? How can we plan ahead? Find a summary of the conference presented by Manuel Rucar, manager of CHLOROSPHERE and partner of the Carré des Jardiniers 2023 competition.
The garden market is in complete transition
By 2025, 50% of the leisure products consumers will be millennials, and this figure rises to 75% for luxury products. The baby-boomers have completed their landscaping projects and now it’s the millennials’ turn to capture the lion's share of the market. Therefore, the order of the day must be to accommodate their habits:
- invest a little at a time instead of making big spendings all at once;
- consume less and more wisely;
- use second-hand goods and reuse products;
- trust more in small, human-scale businesses and companies that are transparent about their ecological impact;
- the quest for stability by an apprehensive generation caught between eco-anxiety and the fear of another pandemic in the future;
- growing awareness of their environmental footprint.
Millennials are reshuffling the deck, while the retail sector is stuck in the 80s. Threat or opportunity? It all depends on the agility of companies in the sector to follow suit!
Gardens turn to the reassurance of the imaginary past...
"Things used to be better". Younger generations are rejecting the gardens of their parents and turning to those of their grandparents. A return to the 50s, a revival of permaculture, and the development of a collaborative economy based on mutual aid are on the rise. Consumers are disillusioned with mid-range products that are now damaged or rusty, and want reliability as well as affordability, especially at a time of soaring inflation.
The younger generations are alarmed by what is happening on an international and national scale and want to refocus on local products. They want authenticity and self-affirmation, and prefer raw materials and a range of wild, local, unconstrained plants.
... but they change much more quickly
Instead of being marked by the changing seasons and having a highly formalized design (French garden, dry Mediterranean garden, etc.), the new-generation garden renews with the unfolding of events. From gardens of attraction, they become vegetable gardens, ephemeral gardens, biodiversity laboratories, etc.
Gardens are a new venue for community events. A trend that is poised for flight under the growing influence of the younger generations in regional planning.
Artificial Intelligence is inevitable, but we don't know (yet) how far it will go
Today, you can ask an AI anything. Predicting "what could be" is within anyone's reach, and the results of "prompts" (the instructions given to AIs to get an answer) are accessible to everyone. So, how do consumers imagine their ideal landscape? The answer is very paradoxical since what they want most is a natural, authentic garden, but they are prepared to trust AI to generate ideas.
For the landscape sector, AI implies a rise in the use of tools. Take garden furniture for example, a picture of a wicker armchair can be cut out from the original source and very simply integrated into a truer-than-life scene, creating what is called a deep fake. For landscape designers, AI is currently a tool to evaluate various design stages or explore creative ideas, but who knows what AI will consist of in the future?
Rewilding is a key issue for future landscapes
In urban planning, everyone is aware of the race for rewilding. The number of square meters per inhabitant with plants is the new quality of life indicator driving cities to optimize available space as much as possible. Rewilding these spaces paves the way for micro-forests and many other methods.
Some key figures from Unep:
- 0.2 = the average number of trees per inhabitant in France's 50 largest cities
- 31m² = the average surface area of green space per inhabitant in France's 50 largest cities.
- 540 ha = the average surface area of urban green spaces in France's 50 largest cities
Rewilding was also a core element of the Carré des Jardiniers 2023 competition, whose theme "Biodiver'Cité: how shall we live in tomorrow’s towns?" inspired our four finalists. Find out more about their approach to rewilding in this deciphering of their gardens by CHLOROSPHERE, partner of the Carré des Jardiniers competition!
5 landscaping trends to use in garden designing
How are these trends illustrated in a garden? Manuel Rucar suggests 5 collections to integrate into your landscaping.
- Collection 1: Authentic and Retro: orange hues and retro materials such as terracotta and tile capture the nostalgia of a bygone era by reinterpreting the garden of the 50s.
- Collection 2: Terra Natura: integrating the product into the landscape allows more space for nature. The benches are formed directly in the masonry, and the pool has a deck that blends into the decor instead of a basin...
- Collection 3: Neoclassical: modern, yet authentic! Consumers want good quality, but don't necessarily know how to express it. Materials such as burnt wood and marble are in high demand.
- Collection 4: Livelyphoria: out with taupe and gray! Neon and pastel colors are making their entry into garden accessories, furniture, and even outdoor paint.
- Collection 5: Graphiscape: graphic, geometric, and clean lines are popular with older consumers who want high quality and timelessness. Gardens can withstand the test of time, and no-one gets tired of them!
To find out more about 2024-2025 garden trends, watch the video of Manuel Rucar's conference on YouTube.
