National Garden Bureau announces featured crops for 2026 'Year of the' program

The National Garden Bureau has announced the choices for the 2026 “Year of the” program.

The program chooses genera specifically for the North American market that are easy to grow, genetically diverse and with a lot of new breeding to showcase. Breeders, brokers, seed companies, growers, retailers and garden communicators throughout the U.S. and Canada can highlight these flowers and plants in their marketing to help generate interest in and sales of these crop classes.

The 2026 "Year of the" program includes:

Bulb: Year of the Crocus

© Graphics courtesy of National Garden Bureau

Annual: Year of the Impatiens

Edible: Year of the Hot Pepper

Houseplant: Year of the Ficus

Perennial: Year of the Sedum

Flowering Shrub: Year of the Azalea

Beginning Nov. 1, 2025, the National Garden Bureau will have photos of numerous varieties of all six crops (provided by NGB members) posted on the NGB website. The organization will also creates PDFs of fact sheets, flyers, handouts, signs, posters, “did you know” graphics, and PowerPoint presentations that will be available for anyone’s use to be downloaded at no charge from the NGB website.

"These tools will help the North American home garden industry promote these non-branded, non-specific varieties to consumers and encourage gardening with these genera," NGB said in a press release.