Garden resolutions: Start the growing year right
By Kathy Jentz
It's a new year and a brand-new start, not just for yourself, but for your garden as well. A new growing season is on the horizon and now is the best time possible to take a good luck at improving your garden.
Here are 10 resolutions you can make to give a boost to your gardening skills, increase your enjoyment of this wonderful hobby and make less work for yourself in the coming year.
1. Take a class. Whether you are an overzealous pruner or a negligent fertilizer, there is a class to help you reform your ways. There are a number of free and inexpensive garden seminars being offered in the D.C. area. Check with your local garden center, botanic gardens and historic homes for their upcoming session listings. Some of my favorites are offered by Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington and Green Spring Gardens in Fairfax.
2. Join a local garden club or plant society. The key is learning from other's experiences. Local garden clubs are full of veteran gardeners who love to share their plant knowledge with fellow members. Many host expert speakers and have a wide range of other activities from plant exchanges to tours of historic gardens. Plant societies are clubs that specialize in one plant variety such as orchids or dahlias. If you are crazy about one particular plant type, then this is the place for you to find fellow enthusiasts. Garden clubs and plant societies are easily found through a Google search and list their events in local newspaper calendars. Most meetings are free to the general public and all welcome newcomers.
3. Read. Visit your local library and bookstore for beautiful gardening books filled with photographs and diagrams. Every avid gardener spends their winter months reading about and dreaming of spring gardens. A home library full of garden resources will inspire you. Also, subscribe to a few garden magazines that are chock full of timely articles. Washington Gardener magazine is the publication for the greater D.C. region, but other excellent magazines include Horticulture, Gardening How-To and Fine Gardening.
4. Journal. You know that pile of plant tags, seed packs and clipped articles from garden magazine that just kept growing larger all last spring through fall? Now is the time to get it organized in your garden journal. Take an evening or two to staple them to pages and pop in a three-ring binder. Make notes as to what was planted where, what worked, what didn't and what something new you would like to try.
5. Take photos. Did you get a digital camera for Christmas? Pull it out of the box and put it to great use this year by taking photos of your yard from various vantage points. Repeat this monthly. Print out and store in your journal. Or just buy a disposable film camera each month and put the developed photos in a "garden album." You'll be amazed at the differences as you flip back through each month and be able to clearly see next winter what seasons are lacking color and interest in your garden.
6. Plan. Get out a pencil and paper and start sketching ideas for a new front border, additional flower beds or a water feature. Think about the kinds of gardens you've visited. Which ones have made you sigh with envy? What styles have you've always admired? Dream big!
7. Get organized. Just as your basement, closets and attic could use a spring cleaning, your garden shed could use the same. Start by taking inventory of your tools, pots, seed packs, etc. What are you missing? What do you have too much of? Maybe you can trade items with fellow garden club members. I recently did a major shed clean-out and was surprised to find I had more than 200 plastic starter pots accumulated from plant purchases! Those will be donated to a grower at my local farmer's market.
8. Share. Make it a point to introduce at least one other person to gardening this year. Surely you have a neighbor, relative, co-worker or friend who has admired your garden. Let them in on a few of your "secrets." Share seeds, tools and maybe even some of your vegetable plot to get them started. A few years from now they may come back with a bounty to share with you.
9. Bring the garden indoors and the comforts of the indoors out. Look at ways to enjoy your garden year-round. Even in the D.C. climate, you can garden in the depths of winter by forcing bulbs or starting seedlings. In the height of the growing season, don't just use the outdoors as a workplace. Set up spaces for you to stop, relax and enjoy the fruits of your hard labors.
10. Expand your garden interests. Go outside your comfort zone and widen your garden universe this year. If you always plant edibles, add some flowers. If you only do flowers, add in some edibles. Are you too afraid to grow "fussy" orchids or roses? Give one a try this year. I've personally never been taken with rock or alpine gardens, but I'm going to give one a try this spring. You never know what doors you may open when you go into new areas. Discover your next garden passion.
Kathy is editor of Washington Gardener magazine (www.WashingtonGardener.com) and a longtime D.C.-area gardening enthusiast. E-mail editor@washingtongardener.com.
It's a new year and a brand-new start, not just for yourself, but for your garden as well. A new growing season is on the horizon and now is the best time possible to take a good luck at improving your garden.
Here are 10 resolutions you can make to give a boost to your gardening skills, increase your enjoyment of this wonderful hobby and make less work for yourself in the coming year.
1. Take a class. Whether you are an overzealous pruner or a negligent fertilizer, there is a class to help you reform your ways. There are a number of free and inexpensive garden seminars being offered in the D.C. area. Check with your local garden center, botanic gardens and historic homes for their upcoming session listings. Some of my favorites are offered by Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington and Green Spring Gardens in Fairfax.
2. Join a local garden club or plant society. The key is learning from other's experiences. Local garden clubs are full of veteran gardeners who love to share their plant knowledge with fellow members. Many host expert speakers and have a wide range of other activities from plant exchanges to tours of historic gardens. Plant societies are clubs that specialize in one plant variety such as orchids or dahlias. If you are crazy about one particular plant type, then this is the place for you to find fellow enthusiasts. Garden clubs and plant societies are easily found through a Google search and list their events in local newspaper calendars. Most meetings are free to the general public and all welcome newcomers.
3. Read. Visit your local library and bookstore for beautiful gardening books filled with photographs and diagrams. Every avid gardener spends their winter months reading about and dreaming of spring gardens. A home library full of garden resources will inspire you. Also, subscribe to a few garden magazines that are chock full of timely articles. Washington Gardener magazine is the publication for the greater D.C. region, but other excellent magazines include Horticulture, Gardening How-To and Fine Gardening.
4. Journal. You know that pile of plant tags, seed packs and clipped articles from garden magazine that just kept growing larger all last spring through fall? Now is the time to get it organized in your garden journal. Take an evening or two to staple them to pages and pop in a three-ring binder. Make notes as to what was planted where, what worked, what didn't and what something new you would like to try.
5. Take photos. Did you get a digital camera for Christmas? Pull it out of the box and put it to great use this year by taking photos of your yard from various vantage points. Repeat this monthly. Print out and store in your journal. Or just buy a disposable film camera each month and put the developed photos in a "garden album." You'll be amazed at the differences as you flip back through each month and be able to clearly see next winter what seasons are lacking color and interest in your garden.
6. Plan. Get out a pencil and paper and start sketching ideas for a new front border, additional flower beds or a water feature. Think about the kinds of gardens you've visited. Which ones have made you sigh with envy? What styles have you've always admired? Dream big!
7. Get organized. Just as your basement, closets and attic could use a spring cleaning, your garden shed could use the same. Start by taking inventory of your tools, pots, seed packs, etc. What are you missing? What do you have too much of? Maybe you can trade items with fellow garden club members. I recently did a major shed clean-out and was surprised to find I had more than 200 plastic starter pots accumulated from plant purchases! Those will be donated to a grower at my local farmer's market.
8. Share. Make it a point to introduce at least one other person to gardening this year. Surely you have a neighbor, relative, co-worker or friend who has admired your garden. Let them in on a few of your "secrets." Share seeds, tools and maybe even some of your vegetable plot to get them started. A few years from now they may come back with a bounty to share with you.
9. Bring the garden indoors and the comforts of the indoors out. Look at ways to enjoy your garden year-round. Even in the D.C. climate, you can garden in the depths of winter by forcing bulbs or starting seedlings. In the height of the growing season, don't just use the outdoors as a workplace. Set up spaces for you to stop, relax and enjoy the fruits of your hard labors.
10. Expand your garden interests. Go outside your comfort zone and widen your garden universe this year. If you always plant edibles, add some flowers. If you only do flowers, add in some edibles. Are you too afraid to grow "fussy" orchids or roses? Give one a try this year. I've personally never been taken with rock or alpine gardens, but I'm going to give one a try this spring. You never know what doors you may open when you go into new areas. Discover your next garden passion.
Kathy is editor of Washington Gardener magazine (www.WashingtonGardener.com) and a longtime D.C.-area gardening enthusiast. E-mail editor@washingtongardener.com.
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Sunday, January 08, 2006
