Wabi-Sabi Gardening Is the Low-Stress Landscaping Trend We All Need Right Now

If the perfectly manicured garden isn’t your vibe, you’re in luck—the latest trend in garden design is a lot more lived-in (and beloved, too). Enter the wabi-sabi garden, a Japanese-inspired garden concept that has doubled in popularity according to a recent trend report by the online landscaping design site Yardzen.

Fortunately, this is a design aesthetic that can work for any outdoor space—and is easy to both create and maintain (so no stressing over perfect lines or a few weeds). If you’re ready to get a little wabi-sabi with your garden, read on to learn how to embrace this on-trend approach to gardening.

What Is Wabi-Sabi?

You may have heard about wabi-sabi as a way of living or a corresponding home-design approach. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy that finds the beauty in imperfection and nature—and even embraces it.

Because it’s a philosophy so focused on nature, it’s an obvious fit for garden design. “Wabi-sabi gives gardeners license to be imperfect,” says Kevin Lenhart, design director for Yardzen. “Not only is this forgiving to people who lack the time, or inclination, to maintain a pristine formal garden, it is intrinsically more aligned with nature.” (And yes, it’s still just as gorgeous as a more manicured garden look.)

How to Incorporate Wabi-Sabi Elements in Your Garden

The best part about wabi-sabi garden design? It’s kind of a lazy design aesthetic, as you’re expected to just allow your garden to thrive and enjoy it as it changes through the seasons—even with fading flowers or weeds cropping up. You also don’t have to lay down big amounts of cash on upkeep or replacing weathered parts of your hardscaping—that rusty metal planter or weathered wood raised garden bed fits the aesthetic.

Focus on using natural elements—including any hardscaping

As part of the all-natural philosophy, wabi-sabi calls for natural elements throughout your garden, both in the plants and in the hardscaping elements, too. Wood, metal (especially metal that has rust or other organic and imperfect aspects to it), and stone are key components of a wabi-sabi hardscape.

Embrace the imperfect

So many gardeners put a lot of effort into ensuring that their gardens are picture-perfect all year round, planting flowers and plants so that there’s always a showstopping focus, no matter the season. But wabi-sabi lets you move away from that and allows you to enjoy those in-between periods when your garden looks a little less exciting.

“It’s a common error to think of landscape designs as fixed—planting designs continuously evolve, and with that evolution comes periods of looking more or less attractive,” Lenhart says. “We could instead think of these in-between moments in a garden’s life, where it appears further from what we’d typically call beautiful, as evidence of its living story, similar to the patina on weathered materials.”

Choose the right plants

While any plant can be incorporated into the wabi-sabi aesthetic, Lenhart recommends focusing on native plants and those that look a little shaggier. “When you are willing to embrace a look that doesn’t mind some rough edges, it becomes even easier to include native plants, as those species with a wilder feel can plug in seamlessly.”

Low-maintenance plants like ornamental grasses and perennial flowers are perfect, including options like yarrow, coneflower, little bluestem, and switchgrass. “They’re particularly useful because they have massive native ranges, perform well in residential landscapes, and tend to be easy to source at local nurseries.”

If you’re introducing new plants, Lenhart suggests planting large masses of a particular species together. “Group multiple individuals of a single species together. This creates a more legible design and can help to streamline maintenance and irrigation.”

Let your garden grow wild

If you’ve been spending your weekends trying to pull every weed and deadhead every spent bloom, here’s your license to chill. You can let your garden simply grow—offering water or fertilizer as needed—but unless the plants are obstructing your sidewalk or driveway, just enjoy the beauty of it. Lenhart mentions garden designs by Piet Oudolf, who keeps seedheads and dried stalks in the landscape at the end of the season for visual interest, as a perfect example of what wabi-sabi should be. “Wabi-sabi design asks us to think differently, to welcome new modes of beauty into our lives, and to more consciously align with natural cycles of life and death. Designs are more rewarding when they don’t filter out the more challenging stuff.”