Maintaining a beautiful garden takes a lot of effort, but with these great gardening techniques, you can work more efficiently—and put less burden on your wallet.
Plant vegetables in clear sight
Plant vegetables and herbs near your back or front door. Since you’ll see them often, you’ll remember to keep them watered. And they’ll be nearby when you need dinner fixings.
Examine your neighbor’s garden to see what works.
Take note of unique plants and plant combinations while you walk or drive. Write them down and bring the list with you to the nursery—having an itemized list can speed up your shopping trips and decrease the desire to buy on the spur of the moment.
Start your garden with good soil
Work in compost, manure, or dried peat moss for nutrient-rich planting beds. Amended soil is lighter, drains well, makes for easy weeding, and allows roots to establish themselves more quickly.
Shrink the size of your lawn
One of the best gardening tips that landscapers can offer is to shrink the size of your lawn. You’ll be amazed at how much time you’ll save on lawn chores simply by reducing the grass-covered areas in your yard. Combine trees, shrubs, boulders and decorative mulches to fashion eye-catching, maintenance-free island beds in your front and back yards.
Keep gardening supplies close at hand.
In your garden, keep an extra set of hand tools and garden twine in a waterproof container. You won’t have to rush to the garage or potting shed for supplies if you detect weeds, broken rose canes, or a stem that needs tying up.
Grow a container garden
When you can’t get anything to grow beneath trees or along fences, set up a multi-tiered container garden in the shady location. Plant shade-loving perennials and compact shrubs in appropriately sized containers; set the containers on stands in varying heights. Or use simple green pots that blend into the background, and won’t compete with the flowering show.
Fertilize smarter—not harder
Nourish gardens and containers with time-release fertilizers that continue feeding for long periods of time. That way, you won’t have to fertilize as frequently.
Mulch your garden with new mulch.
Every year, add new mulch to your gardens. A 2- to 3-inch layer of mulch prevents weeds from developing and helps the soil retain water, requiring less weeding and watering.
Take a garden tour (in your own back yard)
Walk around your garden every day and check plants for pests and diseases—the sooner you spot a problem, the sooner you can take curative measures, which means less work later.
Gardening tips for hostas
Divide and transplant hostas as soon as you see leaf tips breaking through the ground—since the stems and leaves have yet to unfurl, it’ll be easy to cut the root-ball with a serrated knife. The planted divisions will leaf out beautifully in their new sites. You can divide and move fully leafed-out hostas, but you’re likely to break off leaves and stems in the process, which results in ragged-looking plants.
Maintain your gardening tools
Make sure your tools are clean and sharp—they’ll last longer and work better in the garden. Use ergonomically designed tools, kneepads, or kneeling mats to lessen stress on your joints—pain-free bodies also work more efficiently in the garden
Take inventory of your garden
Make a running list of newly-added plants and their locations—this will help you remember what you planted where, which will prevent the inadvertent weeding (and replacing) of a “good plant.” Save perennial plant tags and store them near your favorite how-to gardening book to keep all your gardening tips and planting information in one spot.
Dig once, plant many
When you’ve got a bag of tulip or lily bulbs to plant, or when using annuals to edge a border, dig a large, single planting hole instead of many smaller holes. Make sure it’s large enough for all the bulbs or plants to prevent overcrowding.
Let plants do their thing
Choose plant varieties that readily self-seed, such as corydalis, larkspur and purple coneflower (shown here), or that quickly naturalize, such as daffodils and daylilies, to fill out borders inexpensively.
