If you’re scrolling on Instagram or TikTok, you’ll probably bumped into the viral “2026 is the new 2016” posts, telegraphing nostalgia for life a decade ago. Skinny jeans, hits by Rihanna…what’s not to love? According to Homes & Gardens, you can extend the look back to your property and plant some dahlias — popular then and due for a revival, given their gorgeous multi-petaled blooms in a crayon-box full of colors.

Also of the moment: President’s Day. In addition to delivering a long weekend (yay), the holiday has become synonymous with blowout mattress sales. But here, as you might guess, we see everything though a plant lens. May we remind you that some of our earliest presidents — George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe — were farmers? When Jefferson moved into the White House in 1801, the grounds were “a barren, stony, unfenced waste” littered with construction debris and tree stumps. The Virginia farmer directed the transformation of the site, laying the groundwork (literally) for its current incarnation. Summing up his years of public life, he wrote in 1800 that “the greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture.” That’s what we call the pursuit of happiness, too.

Let’s go further back in history: Have you ever admired depictions of ancient gardens, whether rendered in mosaic at a museum or while streaming a historical series? Us, too. Now, science is uncovering much more information about those millennia-old green spaces. In a recent study, researchers deployed palynology (the study of pollen grains) and examined plant micro-remains from early Roman gardens to reveal what kind of trees were grown, what the green spaces smelled like, and even what kinds of fertilizers were used. Perhaps we’ll soon be able to download plans and build our very own Pompeiian gardens.

Snapping back into this century, British Bake Off Fans, we have news for you. We ate up Mary Berry’s kitchen wisdom when she was one of The Great British Bake Off’s original judges. Berry has since traded her whisks and mixing bowls for trowels and pruners, and says that gardening is her second great love, next to baking. Read all about her triumphs and tips in her new book My Gardening Life, out on March 10, 2026. Instead of being judged for your “soggy bottom” (her catchphrase diss for underbaked pastries), you’ll learn her proven techniques for deadheading roses and watering just right.

It’s not all sweetness and light in Europe right now, however. Given the state of unrest in Ukraine, we’re glad to know about the basement that’s saving biodiversity. Dozens of seedlings of Moehringia hypanica, a sweet little plant with tender white flowers, are being sheltered in an underground lab of the National Dendrological Park Sofiyivka as the conflict with Russia continues. Since the plant is considered endangered and only grows in Ukraine, the lab hopes to preserve this greenery until the fighting ends. In this case, praying for peace can mean praying for plants, too.