Beginners Questions about How to Start Gardening
How do you start gardening is quite a common question.
The answer is simply to have a go. It is like most things, if you don?t try you will never succeed.
1. But you have to be born with green fingers?
It is inevitable that some people will be better than others. That goes for most things in life. You can have enjoyment picking out a tune on a piano without having to play a Beethoven concerto. The same is true of gardening.
2. I like to plant and create but all I seem to do is weed and deadhead.
This is a common complaint but the weeding and deadheading, in other words maintenance can bbe so relaxing. Once planted, a garden needs time to mature and it needs some tender loving care to attain the best results. Don?t make it hard work and tackle large areas all at one go and mix up the jobs. Working like a Trojan weeding the whole garden in a day can be very tiring and although you will see the fruits of your labour it can produce a mental barrier for the next time. Take it slowly and it might surprise you how your mind drifts off onto other things. It is called relaxing your mind. You begin to work out many things that are subconsciously worrying you.
3. I don?t know a weed from a good plant
The majority of us who started without any formal horticultural training do not either. They say we learn by our mistakes and this applies to gardening as well. You have what you think is a ? good one? and as it matures you recognise it as a weed. Next time you will recognise that seedling, well maybe! If you grub a good one, well again you have to put it down to xperience.
4. Gardening is an expensive hobby
Gardening is only an expensive hobby if you make it so. If you are starting a garden from scratch, buy some packets of seeds.
Start by growing hardy annuals. As the name suggests you can sow the seeds directly into the ground as soon as the soil has warmed in the spring. Sow thinly into shallow drills and when they germinate carefully remove any where you have overcrowding and replant.
If you have enough window space and large window sills try sowing half-hardy annuals. They need to be sown indoors and given protection until it is warm enough to plant out. Even very experienced gardeners still get a thrill and sense of achievement seeing seeds germinate and grow into beautiful flowering plants. Get results this way and will give you all the encouragement you need to go to the next stage.
5. But if I need perennials I have to buy them
Sometimes but not always, growing perennial plants from seed is very rewarding and cheaper than buying containerised plants. You can get many plants for the price of just one container grown bought from the garden centre. Some perennials if sown early enough will flower the same year but more often than not it will be their second year before they mature and you see the fruits of your labour. It is worth the wait though, be patient.
The other downside is that you may not find the seed for the variety you would like to grow. You will look at the seed catalogue and see hardy geraniums but not the one you have seen when visiting a garden and admired.
Go to the garden centre and there it will be in a container. Look through the stock with a keen eye and you will find yourself with a bargain. If you are lucky the one plant you have bought might split into three. If so, split it, pot each and grow on. Again it will be the next year before you benefit but will be worth the wait.
Another way to get value for money is to take cuttings from the plant you have purchased. ome species take easier than others from uttings but just have a go. There are cuttings that somepeople find really easy but will not work for me and vice versa.
Gardening can be a relaxing and rewarding hobby. Take that first step, you will have failures but you will have more successes than failures.
Rodger Cresswell is author of My Garden is My Space (www.mygardenismyspace.com) and Garden Diary (diary.mygardenismyspace.com) writing about gardening and wildlife visitors
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