Over the holidays, Aerogarden quietly announced that they’ll be coming back.
In a strange turn of events, the company is reversing their October decision to shut down and instead, re-launching the business in the spring of 2025.
Here’s the full announcement:
Aerogarden Not Shutting Down
To all AeroGardeners,
We heard you. You love your plants, and you love your AeroGardens. That’s why AeroGarden is gearing up for a fresh, new season of indoor growing, ready to reseed your love for gardening all over again!
First, an explanation, which was grounded in the reality we faced last fall. Despite creating the tabletop hydroponic gardening category 20 years ago, the market had been challenging these past few years. And that’s why we made the tough decision to wind down the business.
But your overwhelmingly positive feedback prompted us to take a second look. Just as you start your gardens anew by washing and rinsing clean, we will bring AeroGarden back in spring 2025 with an exciting energy and commitment to growth.
Even before the relaunch, we’re extending many of the things that made AeroGarden great. Here’s what you can expect in the near term:
- Our seeds to be 100% guaranteed to grow.
- The AeroGarden App to be supported and updated for gardens and grow lights.
- Your AeroGarden account and history of growing to remain in effect.
- Our products to be available on Amazon without interruption.
We have many details to work out as we refresh AeroGarden, and we’ll share them as soon as possible. Like a budding relationship, we are taking things slow. We want to get this right – for you. Because we love our plants, too.
Resprouting Early Spring 🌱
I’m thrilled at the news!
But.. is it too little to late?
Since the company shut down, I’ve discovered new brands like Letpot.
For small beginner-friendly gardens, there’s so much choice available now that I’ve converted to really loving this 10-pod garden over Aerogarden’s Harvest models.
It’s well-built, easy to assemble and very affordable. And it has more room for more plants (10 vs 6) while being much cheaper than the Aerogarden Harvest!
I’ve grown several cycles of herbs and salad greens in it and really love it.
Read more: Letpot Air Review: The Best Affordable Indoor Garden
Letpot’s gardens are just as well made and a fraction of the price of Aerogarden
Aerogarden was the OG manufacturer of indoor gardens.
They introduced hydroponic gardening to millions and it was their Harvest countertop garden that got me into indoor gardening in the first place, so I’ve always been a big fan of the brand!
I started with one Harvest.. got another, and another (and another!) until my home looked more like a greenhouse than a city apartment.
Aerogarden made high quality, sleek hydroponic systems in tons of different colors, styles and shapes.
When Chinese manufacturers started knocking off Aerogarden, I always recommended friends to the original, because their quality was so much better.
Read more: The Best Aerogarden Alternatives
Aerogarden’s Indoor Gardens
Some of these are out of stock at the moment, but should be available again in the spring
The LED lights were stronger and higher quality, the garden reservoirs were sturdy and the grow decks well designed.. Aerogarden’s products were worth the higher price tag.
And I especially loved that they always included seeds with their gardens.
For beginners, seed selection makes a big difference.
I also loved how much effort they put into their ancillary products – their liquid nutrients are pH buffered and easy to use and I also stocked up on their useful aerovoirs, side tanks to cut down on water refills.
So I’m SO glad to hear they’re back!
But at the same time… it is a little odd.
I’ve used my Aerogardens to grow full size tomatoes, peppers, salad greens, etc!
Aerogarden Re-Launch
Aerogarden is now fully owned by Miracle-Grow and I wonder if corporate executives don’t fully understand the Aerogarden brand, the indoor garden landscape or their customers.
After the company announced they were shutting down, they slashed prices on their remaining inventory.
I included them in my list of the best Black Friday indoor gardening sales, because all their units were 50% off.
The company also issues 60% off coupons to select customers.
I didn’t get one unfortunately, but everyone I know who did stocked up like mad, buying multiple gardens and loading up on seed supplies and accessories.
Read more: My Complete Indoor Garden Setup
My guess is – old and new customers eagerly bought up their discounted gardens thinking it was their last chance.
And Aerogarden took the surge in sales as a sign they shouldn’t close down.
I’m so excited to hear that Aerogarden isn’t closing down.
But.. one has to wonder what leadership is thinking and if they’ll make improvements to avoid a shutdown in the future.
After everyone massively stocked up on indoor gardens.. will people be buying more, especially as early as spring 2025?
there are so many brands making indoor gardens these days.. here are some of my other gardens from Click & Grow, Ahopegarden and Lettuce Grow
The indoor gardening space has changed significantly.
More people are aware that they can grow herbs, salad greens and tomatoes indoors and there are lots of different brands making all-in-one gardens that people can choose from.
From a consumer standpoint, the increase in competition is great.
It’s brought pricing down significantly, especially on small countertop units, and I’d love to see more affordable indoor gardens on the marketplace so that more people start their own indoor gardens.
I’ve heard from so many people that price is a barrier and I strongly believe that fresh, nutritious pesticide-free produce shouldn’t be a luxury.
Aerogarden’s Coming Back
So while the company works on their re-launch, here’s my wishlist of changes I’d love to see for the company and where I see the industry going in the future :)
Better Pricing
Aerogarden’s pricing has always been a bit high. The company relied on a ‘high MSRP + constant sales’ strategy where they were always offering some sort of discount.
As a customer, it made it a bit confusing to know if you really were getting a deal.
After years of buying their gardens and being attuned to Aerogarden’s products, I got a good gauge on regular vs super deals and I put together this guide to ‘good pricing’ on each of Aerogarden’s units.
It covers every single one of their products.
I’d love to see flatter, better pricing when Aerogarden re-launches.
Read more: The Best Aerogarden Deals
Better App Functionality
Every company under the sun these days wants you to download their mobile app.
Personally, I hate doing that unless there’s actually benefits to it – my phone is addicting and cluttered enough!
What I really love is how some companies add useful features to their indoor gardening app. In particular, I love Letpot’s app.
For example, Letpot’s app lets you customize the light schedule through your phone, even though the garden itself doesn’t have buttons for that feature.
I think for small countertop gardens, where companies try to compete on price, adding LCD screens and customizable buttons may be cost prohibitive.
So I don’t mind it being on the app instead!
Read more: Letpot Max Review: The Best All in 1 Garden?
Aerogarden doesn’t let you customize the lights on their small countertop models, but some other brands do
I specifically like to be able to fully customize the start and stop times for the LED lights.
Aerogarden’s small, simple gardens like the Harvest 2.0 would automatically use a 15 hour light schedule that started when the machine was first plugged in.
It made it really difficult to sync light times if you had more than one garden.
Or, if the power went out, you had to perfectly time it to re-plug in the garden at the ‘start’ time that you wanted.
It also didn’t allow you to adjust the light schedule to be longer, or shorter. For example, some plants are lower maintenance and 14 hours would be fine.
Since electricity is the main cost of running an indoor garden, light schedule customization is a big deal.
Read more: Does Indoor Gardening Run Up My Electric Bill?
I never really found the Aerogarden app very helpful.
Originally, I thought it would be handy to remote-control my gardens.
For example, if I went on vacation, I thought it’d be able to show me my gardens or raise the LED height from a distance.
But the apps only let you remote control if you’re in the same room, which for me made them a bit pointless.
Aerogarden’s relaunch announcement specifically referenced the mobile app so perhaps they’ll revamp it and make it more useful.
just some of the vegetables I’ve been able to grow without outdoor space… thanks to Aerogarden!
More Large Indoor Gardens
The Aerogarden Farms are my favorite and most-used indoor gardens.
They’re versatile, unique and able to grow everything from basil to full size tomatoes.
If you’re curious what’s possible, you can check out my post here on every vegetable I’ve grown indoors.
There’s no other brand making a similar product to the Farms so I’d love to see Aerogarden expand the Farm family, with more sizes, colors and height options.
It’d be amazing to have a Farm with 4 or 5 feet of growing height space!
More Accessories
Another area I think Aerogarden really excelled is in their indoor gardening accessories.
They created arguably the best all-in-one liquid nutrient, their eponymous liquid plant food and they also came out with helpful accessories like:
- Aerovoir: a 1.3 gallon additional water tank
- Be the Bee: a vibrating wand to increase germination rates
- Seed Starting Tray: a grow deck with tons of extra holes to massively start a bunch of seeds at once
- Individual Grow Lights: small portable lights you could stick into a houseplant for extra light
Some accessories were out of stock for months before the closure announcement, so it’d be great to have those available again!
And I’d love to see new accessory launches or large sizes made available of the liquid plant food.
I also appreciated Aerogarden’s customer service.
They wouldn’t hesitate to reply to your concerns, would send out replacement seed pods for any seeds that didn’t germinate and offered a strong multi-year product warranty.
In recent years though, the customer service got noticeably slower response times. I’m sure this will change when they relaunch and have more resources available.
Aerogarden launched an entire indoor garden universe, with their aerovoir water tanks, seed starting trays and plant food
Sell Replacement Parts
And finally, I’d love if the company sold replacement parts like they used to!
Aerogarden used to list replacement water pumps, LED lights and other spare parts for anyone who needed to fix a small piece of their otherwise-working indoor gardens.
For the most part, Aerogarden’s products are very well made and rarely need updating.
But occasionally I’d get comments from people who bought second-hand gardens or had moved and knocked out the lights and wanted to know where to get singular parts.
I hate dumping things to the landfill when they can be fixed, so it’d be great to have replacement parts available again.
What do you think of Aerogarden’s surprising announcement? Are there any new features or products you’d like to see?
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I like that Aerogarden plans to relaunch. But I am suspicious about the going-out-of-business only to change their minds so quickly. Hopefully they have a new game plan to compete, and hopefully it doesn’t mean a significant downgrade of their units, warranty, or customer service.
I started with Aerogarden in 2008, buying a 7-pod unit on sale. I made it my motto never to buy at full price, and in many cases, I’ve beaten your “steal deal” prices. It’s hard to beat $155 for a Bounty Elite, or $80 for a Bounty Basic, or $60 for a Harvest Elite, but those are legit sale prices I’ve paid for brand new units on Amazon, Woot and Aerogarden!
Still, it would be nice if AG adopted more realistic regular prices, as new customers don’t know that sales and better prices are a regular and ongoing thing.
My hope is Aerogarden continues to make quality units. I would also like to see better availabiliy of key replacement parts like LED light hoods. Pumps too, are often out-of-stock.
As for the app vs screen thing, I could go for that IF the Aerogarden app was better. However, since none of my existing Harvest Elite units are WiFi connectable, I like my screens on those. I absolutely do want to be able to control my light ON times because of the sheer number of units I run. And knowing how long a garden has been growing is key to efficient replanting for a continual supply of greens. I run EIGHTEEN units!
I think app vs. screen might be a direction Aerogarden could go to reduce unit cost. But they need to improve the app a lot and make connecting gardens easier.
I also think they could consider ditching the individual pod drip system to reduce unit cost. I’ve owned old Aerogardens that did NOT feature this, as they used air stones, and they grew plants equally as well as the drip system style. A one piece deck is easier to clean and sanitize at the end of a grow than a deck you have to split apart. Further, no roots can get inside a solid deck. As long as a pump can deliver enough oxygen to the reservoir, it doesn’t have to be directed to the pods individually.
They need to account for enthusiasts who run a lot of units in addition to those who just run one or two. It would be nice for instance to be able to NOT have to type in a long WiFi password on each and every garden one needs to connect! Connecting multiple gardens needs to be simpler! Better organizing features would be a plus. Tne frustration I had with the AG app was that I couldn’t easily rename a garden if I terminated and planted something different in it. I could only disconnect it, then reconnect to give it a new name. And that was a no go because of the laborious WiFi password entry.
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ooh very impressed + jealous of your ability to snag insane aerogarden deals.
thanks for dropping a comment, i agree with many of your points!