The 2025 Flowers and Plants of the Year, According to Your Favorite Garden Brands

Influential people and trends are announced every year, like Time's Person of the Year and Pantone's Color of the Year. And your favorite gardening brands have noticed; many think exceptionally beautiful, flavorful and easy-to-grow plants deserve recognition, too. We've rounded up 12 of the best that these brands picked this year. Read on to find your favorite 2025 Plant of the Year and 2025 Flower of the Year. You can find them in nurseries and garden centers or order them online.

Cosmos 'Sea Shells Red' (Cosmos bipinnatus) won a 2025 National Garden Bureau Green Thumb Award (GTA). Garden industry professionals and the public choose the winners for their uniqueness, overall appeal to gardeners and other qualities. This pretty annual has unusual "rolled" flowers that are dark pink inside and pink-lavender outside. Butterflies flock to the blooms, which open on willowy, tall stems from midsummer until frost. Grow it in containers or the landscape, or cut the flowers for arrangements that can last 7 to 10 days in vases. This sun-lover is a real problem solver for gardeners with short growing seasons, where old cosmos varieties grown from seeds often die in cold weather before they have time to flower.

Garden industry pros chose Basil Everleaf Lemon as a 2025 GTA winner in the edibles category. It produces lots of glossy, aromatic leaves packed with vitamins and antioxidants and adds a complex, lemony-sweet flavor to salads, marinades and dressings. This citrusy annual grows in mounds that reach 2 to 3 feet tall and earned high marks because it's very slow to bolt, so the bright green leaves can be harvested 6 to 8 weeks longer than standard lemon basils. It craves full sun and can’t take frost, so don’t plant it outside until the weather is reliably warm. Everleaf Lemon grows nicely in containers or garden beds.

This hydrangea's big, mophead blooms are raspberry-colored when grown in alkaline soils and purple-blue in acidic ones. The flowers, which have a touch of bright green, are held on dark red stems. Seaside Serenade Pebble Beach (Hydrangea macrophylla) stays compact, reaching 3 to 4 feet high and wide, so it's ideal for landscapes or containers. Give it partial shade to partial sun and rich, moist soil and it will rebloom from spring through summer. This deciduous shrub is featured as one of the best, new introductions in Monrovia's 2025 Distinctive Selections Guide thanks to its strong, thick stems, which are great for cutting, and its disease resistance. It's hardy in USDA Gardening Zones 4 to 9.

Bring a blast of sunshine yellow to garden beds, hanging baskets and other containers with Supertunia Mini Vista Yellow (Petunia hybrid), a spring-to-fall bloomer. It's one of Proven Winners' 2025 National Plants and Recipes of the Year. This annual flowers abundantly but doesn’t need deadheading. It attracts hummingbirds, bees and butterflies, tolerates drought and heat and blooms continuously until a killing frost. Give it part to full sun and it will grow 18 to 24 inches high and 6 to 12 wide. While Supertunia Mini Yellow Vista adapts to average soils, it does best when a controlled release fertilizer is applied at planting time. Feed Supertunias in containers with a water-soluble fertilizer during the summer to give them a boost in hot weather. Follow the directions on your products for how much to use

The ranunculus was selected by 1-800-Flowers.com, an online flower delivery service, as its 2025 Flower of the Year. Also called buttercups, ranunculuses are biennials with layers of paper-thin petals that form big, ruffled blooms, and this variety, 'Radiant Ranunculus,' is available in white, cream, yellow, red, orange, pink, maroon and apricot. Alfred Palomares, VP of Merchandising for 1-800-Flowers.com and one of the award judges, said he chose them because these customer favorites are unique and symbolize the potential and joy that each new year brings. Ranunculuses are popular with florists and home gardeners who grow them from corms planted in the fall. Hardy in Zones 8 to 10, these springtime bloomers need full sun and rich, well-draining soil. The plants top out at 12 to 18 inches high in beds or containers, and the cut blooms can last for 7 to 10 days in vases.

The Perennial Plant Association named clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) as its 2025 Perennial of the Year. Also called blunt mountain mint or short-toothed mountain mint, it was selected for its ability to attract pollinators, tolerate drought and adapt to many types of soil. It also resists pests, diseases, deer and rabbits. Mountain mint needs full to part sun and grows in clumps. The plants reach 2 to 3 feet tall with narrow, tapering leaves, and from about July to September, small, white flowers open on top of silvery bracts (modified leaves). Mountain mint is hardy in Zones 4 to 8.

The American Garden Rose Selections program looks for roses that show outstanding performance in field trials. Blushing Drift, a groundcover rose, won the program's 2025 Regional Choice Award for its compact size, disease resistance and double flower clusters. The judges evaluate the roses for qualities like vigor, rebloom habit, bloom form and hardiness, and said Blushing Drift adapted well to different soils and climates across six regions. They also called it a low-maintenance solution for problem landscapes, like hillsides. This beauty has small, pink blooms with yellow centers and glossy, dark green leaves. Hardy in Zones 4 to 11, it needs full sun and grows to 18 inches high with a 36-inch spread. Other roses in the Drift series are available in apricot, white, coral, red and other colors.

You might think Lia Abstract Lemon Cherry Calibrachoa is a petunia with petite, yellow-gold flowers splashed with cherry red, but while it's related, it's actually a Calibrachoa hybrid. This annual prefers take full sun to partial shade in hot climates. Its semi-trailing stems are covered with blooms for months in the summertime and don't need deadheading. Use this National Garden Bureau People's Choice GTA winner, chosen for its vibrant colors, controlled growth and early blooms, in hanging baskets or containers. Trim it occascionally to encourage more flowering stems. It grows 12 to 14 inches tall and 12 to 16 inches wide.

Commonly called burning bush (Euonymus alatus), Fire Ball Seedless brings gorgeous color to the fall landscape. This Asian woody shrub arrived in North America around 1860, where birds and small mammals distributed the seeds. Over time, the plants formed thickets that crowded out native plants, so some states now ban burning bush as an invasive species. Fortunately, there’s a new Euonymus in town. Fire Ball Seedless won a Professional’s Choice GTA because it's currently the only non-invasive, seedless and sterile burning bush on the market. Hardy in Zones 4 to 8, it has striking crimson foliage and likes full sun. This deciduous shrub matures at 5 to 7 feet tall and wide and can grow in large containers or the ground, where it can be pruned into a hedge or specimen plant. Plant Euonymus alatus in moist, well-drained soil. Once established, it's drought tolerant. The plants bloom, but the flowers aren’t showy.

The judges at 1-800-Flowers named the snake plant as its 2025 Plant of the Year. This houseplant earned high marks because it's low-maintenance, which makes it especially good for beginning gardeners who might neglect it from time to time. It needs water only when the soil is completely dry and can survive for a short time without any water at all. It doesn't need much light, either, and tolerates dimly-lit spaces like offices, bathrooms and bedrooms. The judges also appreciated its vertical growth habit, which works well in small spaces and complements contemporary and modern décor. According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2025 is the Year of the Snake. Different varieties of this Dracaena, formerly known as Sansevieria, come in solid green or green with yellow, silver, gold and white stripes or bands. Snake plants rarely bloom indoors, and some don’t bloom at all.

Why, yes, this philodendron is gorgeous. 'Orange You Gorgeous', a philodendron hybrid, is as colorful as a sunset over the beach, with long, spade-shaped leaves that start out orange and mellow to marbled green and gold. Garden industry professional judges gave it a GTA because it's disease resistant and easy to grow in bright, indirect light or filtered sunlight. While this 2025 Plant of the Year list can adapt to average household humidity, it prefers high humidity, so run a humidifier nearby or by keep it on a tray filled with pebbles and a little water. The plants grow 12 to 24 inches tall and produce white and cream-colored spathes (bracts) with flowering spikes. It likes to climb, so give it a moss pole, small trellis or other structure that its aerial roots can grasp.