Smart gardening tips

 

 

Smart Garden Design: Pick the ideal site and start out small at first.

1. With our very busy lifestyle, it's a good idea to keep your garden simple and small when starting out. Fitting some plants into a compact area makes caring for them easier than trying to go too big. Making a map on paper can help you with a plan on how much you will need to buy and choose the right plants for the spot. Observe how much light and sun the spot gets throughout the day. If it only gets a few hours of direct sun then you might want to plant shade loving plants. If it gets five or more hours of direct sun you could plant herbs and vegetables.

2. Try to enrich the soil at first and then every spring by adding compost. Do this before planting to ensure a healthy stress free start. Buy hardy varieties that you won't have to water or prune all season. Choose some perennials and shrubs that come up year after year and allow them to spread. Mulching with shredded bark also helps keep the moisture in so you can cut back on the watering. Filling in the spaces between perennials with colorful annuals can be changed each year to give you a new look.

3. Grow some creeping vines up a vertical trellis or fence to add veggies like cucumber and flowers like sweet pea for their colorful blooms. It also will attract some bees and butterflies with pollination.

4. Grow herbs in large pots and have them right outside the kitchen door or on a deck to use in cooking. Dill, Sage, Mint, Garlic, Chives, Basil and Parsley are very good ones to start if you are a new gardener. Most are good hardy plants and don't require a lot of care. Place a piece of floral foam in the bottom of the pots to absorb extra water to keep roots from drying out. Line large planter boxes with insulation to help hold moisture. Healthy plants often double or even triple in size to fill a pot; plant small herbs in pots that allow room to grow. Double the size is a good way to go with most perennials.

Many herbs flower and also have very strong scented leaves so you can use them to make herbal teas, potpourri, soaps, candles or place in a vase with other cut flowers. Some even have long lasting blooms you can cut and hang to dry for crafts like wreaths.