The Big Blog Of Gardening

If you’re new to gardening, you should think about making a plan for your garden before you buy any plants. Planting haphazardly, whether it’s vegetables, fruit, perennials or annuals, is strictly a hit or miss proposition. You might get lucky, but more likely than not, you’ll lose a lot of plants and give up in frustration.

So what do I mean by making a plan? It’s Fall now, so you have a good 5 months to think about: Where does most of the day’s sun hit my property? Which parts of the property get the least light? What do I want to see when I look out my windows? What kind of soil do I have and what kind of condition is it in?

While these questions might seem complicated at first, they’re really not. First, note where the sun hits your property at sunrise, midday and evening – these are your starting points. Then, decide if you’re planting a vegetable garden or flower garden (or maybe a little of both). If you want to plant a vegetable garden, please look at my earlier post on planning a raised bed vegetable garden.

If you’re planning on planting a flower bed, whether perennials or annuals, your best bet is to start on the side of your property which faces South. Assuming you don’t have lots of trees or high walls, a southern exposure generally gets the majority of light during the spring and summer, which makes your probablity of successful blooms much higher. Creating a garden bed next to the south facing wall of your home is usually the most logical place to start, but creating an “island” on a sunny slope or other favorite sunny spot  is cool, too.

Decide what kind of bushes and shrubs you’d like to plant and what kind of flowers will compliment them. This is strictly a personal and aesthetic choice and also depends on the climate of the area you live in. Gardening and landscaping books are an excellent resource here. I’d recommend The American Horticultural Society’s Encyclopedia Of Perennials or The A To Z Encyclopedia Of Garden Plants to start with. Look at pictures, decide on a few varieties and then make sure that those plants are appropriate for your area by consulting The USDA Hardiness Zones. Most likely you’ll find a Hardiness Zone map in one of the aforementioned books as well.

One big thing that many novice gardeners don’t pay attention to is the quality of their soil. For a quick primer, please look at my earlier post about conditioning your garden soil. You absolutely need to understand this, because it will help you avoid tons of frustration. Certain plants like certain soils, just like people like certain foods. We thrive on the nutrition which benefit our bodies and do poorly when it’s denied, and it’s the same for all living things. So know if you’re working with clay, sandy or loamy soil before you plant anything, and especially before you add any amendments or mulches to your soil. And by all means, start to learn organic methods of gardening – chemicals are simply not necessary, as they can actually make your plants less healthy. Chemicals upset the ecological balance – killing one pest while letting others multiply, and add unhealthy amounts of nitrogen which can create unstable growth.

So there you have it – start making your plan and look forward to the beautiful flowers you’ll grow next spring and summer!