Gardening goes glamorous due to Gen Z

Gardening is shaking off its dowdy image with an influx of glamorous green-fingered influencers sharing their inventive tips online and embracing the ‘garden girl’ aesthetic.

Often deemed a favourite pastime for retirees, gardening has soared in popularity since the pandemic, with more young people embracing a slower pace of life.

Now, keen young gardeners are dominating social media platforms – with #gardengirl reaching more than 80 million views on TikTok alone.

They’re bringing some fresh – and Instagram-friendly – ideas to the gardening community – including on how to grow and use edible flowers, create your own allotment space at home and look after produce such as homegrown wasabi.

The trend isn’t just attracting influencers, since Lady Amelia Windsor, who is the granddaughter of the Duke of Kent – making her 43rd in line to the throne, has an Instagram feed peppered with snaps of herself wandering through colourful English gardens in chic summer dresses.

But it’s influencers like Amy Chapman – known on Instagram as @inthecottagegarden – leading the way when it comes to engaging the masses with their innovative gardening advice – all while wearing some Insta-worthy outfits. 

Amy is a thriving content creator with over 283K followers on Instagram, 12,000 followers on Facebook, and a YouTube channel dedicated to gardening and wildlife. 

In true influencer style, Amy enjoys gardening whilst wearing glam ‘garden girl’ ensembles that consist of colourful crochet knits, on-trend tomato-print t-shirts, floaty summer dresses and plenty of gingham.

Her Instagram page is a treasure trove of tips for bringing an English country garden to life, with some clever hacks – like how to make rose lemonade from the flowers in your garden or grow mushrooms from old coffee grounds.  

There are over 150 different types of roses – and they’re all edible. Rose petals not only have a distinctive flavour, but they’re also high in vitamin C and vitamin A, as well as powerful antioxidants.

An advocate for sustainability, Amy also encourages gardeners to use food waste to their advantage. ‘Don’t throw your coffee grounds away! Use them to grow mushrooms instead,’ she urges on Instagram.

Amy continued: ‘Oyster mushrooms are surprisingly easy to grow so I highly recommend them for beginners! 

‘I got a few of my timings off with this batch as I went away but I still managed to get a crop as they’re so resilient, I’m just waiting for my second crop now.’

More than seven million people took up gardening in 2020, according to stats from Mind, leading to a boom in the popularity of gardening influencers like Amy. 

Plenty of those falling into the Gen Z and millennial age brackets are romanticising their ‘gardening era’ with TikTokers like @AllyPally, a ‘city girl turned farmer’ claiming to be in her ‘feminine gardens with a dress on era’.

Alongside a video of herself watering some plants in her spacious garden, she writes: ‘Imagine being free from the 9-5, growing your own organic food and flower gardens. People have limited access to you, you’re slowing down with no schedule to follow.’ 

Meanwhile, keen gardener and social media influencer @EmmaJoRealDavis declares ‘Partying is fun, but gardening is better’.

The RHS Level 2 trained gardener shares advice and stunning imagery of her own garden on Instagram and TikTok, with an engaged community of nearly 30K followers keen to glean some of her knowledge on plants and flowers – as well as admire her glamorous gardening outfits. 

Emma’s grid is full of colourful tiered dresses, romantic billowing sleeves and other on-trend ‘garden girl’ ensembles.

Elsewhere, TikToker @emmasallotmentdiaries has been sharing videos of herself building an allotment on the social media platform, advising followers on how to create their own at home. 

But why are such green-fingered themed accounts becoming so popular with the younger generation? One Gen Z account manager, Alexandra Johansen, says gardening influencers bring her ‘such joy’.

‘Personally, I love the beauty that these accounts plug into my daily life – like Mariah Michelle (@magnoliahillhouse on TikTok),’ she told FEMAIL. 

‘She puts on an accent and wears delightfully oversized sun hats with whimsical dresses for her ‘Floral Friday’ videos. 

‘Is that likely to be me in the near future? Unfortunately not. But do I love the two minutes of indulging in Mariah’s homegrown blooms and escapist content every week? Absolutely. It brings me such joy – even if it’s through my phone.’

Meanwhile, there’s never been a better time for content creators to monetise their platforms. 

As UK leading Instagram expert, author and speaker Estelle Keeber explains: ‘After the huge insurgence of gardening content during lockdown, it was only normal that we would see this slow fade, so what has caused this new wave of Gardener Influencer? There are a few reasons.

‘There has never been a better time to monetise using Instagram and TikTok. From collaborations and paid partnerships to subscriptions and paid content. The fact that people can make money from doing something they enjoy is a massive positive when it comes creating content.

‘Aside from the monetisation, it has never been easier to grow rapidly either. With IG really pushing video content, this gives accounts the opportunity to create content that could potentially be seen by millions of people in a very short period regardless of how many followers they have themselves.’

She then continued: ‘Gardening influencers have really given a new lease of life to gardening and brought this to a younger demographic. 

‘Whether it is showing users how to create amazing green areas in small spaces such as flats, apartments or yard or showing that we can all make a difference in taking better care of our planet by growing our own, gardening influencers are showing that you do not have to be 60 years old and ‘down the allotment’ to get involved and I think it’s a blooming great idea!’