What’s Hot for Summer 2025?

Explore Summer Garden Design Trends & Styles With East London Parasol Co

A huge part of the fun in predicting and assessing outdoor seasonal design trends is the opportunity to plan our own versions and applications of them. With the relative hibernation of the winter months, it’s always a joy to imagine what new ideas and looks will be providing the backdrop to those longer, lazy summer days and al fresco evenings as the mercury rises.

Summer 2025 looks worth getting excited about. Early indications are pointing towards a wonderfully vibrant mix of styles that blends modern ideas with some more classic aesthetics and colours. It’s the time to start planting a few seeds of ideas, so let’s dig in.

Lived-In is Well Loved

The trend towards a lived-in look for gardens has been gathering pace for a couple of years, overgrown is in and overdone perfection is out. Next summer feels like it will really cut through with guardians of outdoor spaces embracing imperfections for a slightly rougher overall style that values the natural over pristine. For those of us that have been working towards this look for a few seasons, it means resisting the temptation to cut back too much to achieve those clean lines and sharp edges with lawns, hedges and beds. A more biophilic approach is required, where nature is guided, rather than ordered. Softer edges blend between our indoor and outdoor environments, and less disturbance maintains the habitats of the creatures we live alongside.

Of course, there is an irony here that this look can be achieved in a rapid way. Choosing mature shrubs such as hydrangeas and viburnums allows for a cottage-style theme to develop, with more structured options available from lavender, sage and boxwood if required.

This look is very much quintessential England, being of the Gertrude Jekyll school, so adding in a classic David Austin red rose bush is always a great idea. The all-important statement piece of furniture can then be tailored towards flashes of colour to really stand out amongst the slightly yet purposefully overgrown garden.

Bringing the Zing

The looks and styles of our gardens often take their cues and take influence from the wider design world. The recent rise and impact of bold and dynamic orange is perhaps most evident through Verona Sunset being crowned as the 2025 Wedding Colour of the Year by Brides Magazine. Always ahead of the curve, here at ELPC we have been championing the virtues of this versatile colourway for a very long time.

Brighten your garden with warming orange. Beautiful French Marigolds require a little effort to sow indoors at warmer temperatures, but once they are ready for a sunny position in the garden they will bloom until the first frost of autumn with a riot of orange, and they’ll self seed for next year. Californian Poppies are a slightly lower maintenance alternative that thrive in sunny areas for vivid orange flashes across beds and lawns too.

A Serene Companion

Adding variety and contrasts in different areas of your outdoor environment keeps everything fresh and inviting. The lean towards calmer palettes such as teal and seafoam green is something we are excited to see in 2025 through both plant choices and furniture colours. This aligns wonderfully with the wellbeing and mindful aspects of our gardens that have been a huge part of the post-pandemic years. Succulents like Blue Chalk Stick are a striking way of adding in this atmosphere in patio pots or on top of rock gardens.

With the softer, aged feel of teal paint for metal and wood, you can also transform any seating or fencing that may be a little worse for wear from the winter months. Bolder blues, with waves or angled patterns, can then be added with dressing, fabrics and cushions to offer a layered and textured atmosphere in these surroundings.

Getting Smart for Sustainability

The use and integration of simple garden technology is always particularly satisfying to see in future garden trends. With so much emphasis on energy reduction and water conservation, it makes sense to utilise smart sensors for soil moisture levels to ensure that nothing is overwatered and wasteful. Similarly with any outdoor lighting, there are so many options for app controlled or day/night sensitive solutions that make it easy to only use them when you intend to benefit from the ambience they provide.

2025 – The year for Wilder Life

Finding harmony in our gardens simply has to incorporate a welcome to wildlife in 2025. If things are to be a little less tidy this year around the edges, that means we can encourage each other to do our part for the dwindling biodiversity and insect populations too. Not rushing to rake up every leaf, or scythe down every seed head will inevitably mean that perennials are favoured as part of your strategy, enjoy the sculptural skeletons of umbellifers and bare branched trees. The Bleeding Hearts - sometimes referred to as false sunflowers are a great choice for a dash of theatre with their rough leaves and foliage that holds a dark maroon flower maturing to a bright red/orange.

 Achieving your perfect Summer 2025 can be done in style, of course. If there are less minutes to be spent on maintenance, then that means you can dedicate more hours planning the next garden design project, or just kicking back and enjoying what you already have.

That can only be a good thing for every creature, including us.