As children we all enjoyed the artform called “painting by numbers”. Even the most creatively-challenged person could achieve a semi decent result provided they stuck to the plan (and kept within the colour boundaries).

And, while everyone knows that you would never see a “paint-by-numbers” hanging in the <a href="https://www.louvre.fr/" target="new" rel="noopener">Louvre</a> they were fun to do and possibly encouraged many budding artists to continue their craft.

So what will happen to gardening once “gardening by numbers” becomes the current trend? Will we see more people become involved with our favourite pastime or will the fad just bore us as home gardens become instant replicas of each other?

Winnie Anderson from From My Tulips shared some interesting thoughts suggesting this;
<blockquote>To be honest, I really don’t see this as a bad thing.
Gardening can be an expensive hobby. Adding to that is the huge volume of information available about flowering schedules and plant growth and other details and I think the “garden by numbers” trend is an indication of our being overloaded by information and short for time to invest reading and researching.</blockquote>
I’m intrigued as to how this trend will develop. There doesn’t appear to be much information available yet or many products on the shelves. But this is only a matter of time.

I don’t really see it as a bad thing either as it will certainly encourage many people to diss their landscape contractor and get into gardening themselves. Provided people begin to experiment rather than just buy the product and use verbatim I think this can benefit our hobby and its growth.

What do you think? Have you heard of products offering this before and (heaven forbid!) ever used one?