Gardens & containers go sustainable in 2011

This year’s hot garden trend? According to a recent report from Tesselaar Plants, eco-friendly, water-wise, sustainable gardens and containers top the current "charts."

The report cites a variety of factors, like a slow economy and water restrictions that are making folks more conscious of their water use and water bills. Then there are increasingly busy lifestyles, which make treating for pests and diseases or replacing dead plants an unmanageable time drain. Add to that Americans’ growing desire to do their small part to help the environment, and the result is a skyrocketing demand for “eco-scaping” plants. The 2011 American Society of Landscape Architects Residential Trends Survey, for instance, says drought-tolerant and low-maintenance plants (like the red, glossy fountains of Festival Burgundy cordyline pictured here) are among this year’s top trends.

 “We’ve been using – and advocating the use of – sustainable plantings for years, but this has now become the gold standard for how we design landscapes,” said Sharon Coates, co-owner of Zaretsky and Associates, a landscape design/build firm in Rochester, N.Y. “Water conservation and environmental issues are at the top of everyone’s minds these days, and sustainable plantings can do a lot to reduce the amount of water needed.”

Gardeners also want the same easy-care, eco-friendly plants in their containers, according to the Garden Media Group’s 2011 garden trends survey.

 “We definitely see a big movement toward sustainable container gardening, which means using drought-tolerant and low-maintenance plants that offer season-long interest while requiring fewer chemicals and less water,” said Anthony Tesselaar, cofounder and president of Australia-based Tesselaar Plants. “As we continue our mission of ‘making gardening easy’ for everyone, that has come to mean not only developing plants that are low-maintenance and environmentally friendly in the garden, but also in containers.”