What's hot in the garden for 2008 (Hint: Think green)

Beef up the patio. Hold the chemicals. And garnish the yard with high-performing, low-work plants and a dash of organically grown vegetables.

That's the menu of gardening trends as we head into 2008.

Here's a quick look ahead to what's in and what's out on the gardening scene:

What's in

• Anything "natural" or "organic."

• Composting yard waste.

• Recyclable rice pots.

• Native and no-spray plants.

• Compact, low-maintenance plants.

• Plants with long-lasting blooms, colorful leaves and multiseason interest.

• Varied plantings aimed at attracting birds, bees and butterflies.

• Lots of landscape color, especially orange, gold, mango and similar "warm" tones.

• Rain barrels and conserving water.

• Rain gardens.

• Do-it-yourself landscape projects (at least the planting part).

• More elaborate and fully furnished patios.

• Small-scale, organically grown home vegetable and herb gardens.

• Container gardening, including changing the plantings throughout the four seasons.

• Pondless water features (moving water empties into a buried vault instead of a surface pond).

• Sweeping, curved garden beds.

What's out

• Chemical sprays.

• Bagging leaves and grass clippings.

• Plastic pots.

• Non-native plants that might become invasive.

• Plants that take a lot of pruning or spraying.

• Boring or "two-week wonder" plants that don't change with the seasons.

• Big lawns and the same old few plant types everyone else has.

• Bland beds with little more than boxed or balled evergreens.

• Running sprinklers indiscriminately.

• Piping rainwater ASAP into the gutters.

• Hiring a company to do entire landscape improvements from A to Z.

• A basic concrete patio or deck with a table and stand-alone grill.

• Large vegetable gardens that take a lot of digging, hoeing, weeding, etc.

• Packing all the flower pots away at the end of October.

• Free-formed, hand-dug, clean-out-once-a-year water gardens.

• Squared-off garden bed.