“Digging for Dopamine”

Ellen C. Wells

The 2027 Garden Trends Report was released to the world in early September, after Garden Media Group President Katie Dubow’s popular sneak preview at Cultivate’26 in Columbus. 

Let’s go over the theme of this year’s Garden Trends Report, “Digging for Dopamine.” What is it? It’s a chemical messenger in the brain and body that helps control movement, motivation and the feeling of reward. That feeling you get when you dink in pickleball or airmail your bag in cornhole or find a funny video on social media—that’s a hit of dopamine and that’s why you are up for another.

Why did Katie and the GMG crew name the 2027 theme for a neurotransmitter that pings at our reward system? I asked Katie and here’s what she said: “‘Digging for Dopamine’ is our name for what happens when the easy hits—the endless scroll, the latte, the same day delivery—stop feeling like enough. We check our phones on average 205 times a day; the 206th time isn’t going to make us feel any better. People are craving something slower and realer, and gardening has always been that. 

“It’s the dirt under your nails, the sore feeling after a day spent planting and weeding, a wait worth having, a payoff you can see grow. 2027 is the year the green industry gets to be the antidote, not the alternative.”

So what are the concepts you can read in the full report? 

• Show Up Culture
• OutdooRx
• Let’s Go Rococo
• Where the Wild Things Aren’t
• Drop It Like It’s Hot
• Proof of Soil
• COTY

Interested to see how you can use these concepts in your 2027 sales and marketing? Go to the Garden Media Group website to download the full, free report (with registration).  GP