Thoughts of spring can mess with your mind. The greening of the world around you lifts your spirits and energizes your cold, cooped-up self and you want to do all the garden things. Tear out the old, plant the new, and create a breathtakingly beautiful landscape in just one season.
This is the moment when you need to Breathe In and Breathe Out. Harness the energy. Focus on achievable goals for your landscape. And understand that gardening is more than a single spring. It’s about small projects that lead to long-term success.
I’ve gathered three gardening goals for your landscape this year: growing edible gardens, getting started with native plants, planting for pollinators and reducing water use for your lawn. If you’re blessed with space and time, try the trio. A better approach is to focus on one or two goals that appeal to you and take on what you enjoy. Gardening shouldn’t (always) feel like work. And in the serendipitous way that nature works, you’ll discover that these garden goals overlap to become principles and pillars of a beneficial ecology.
Let’s Start with Edible Gardening
Try your hand at growing your own food this year. With a full sun site (6 to 8 hours sunlight), you can grow tomatoes, peppers and more of your favorite vegetables. If your site isn’t quite as sunny (4 to 6 hours sunlight), you can still grow herbs like basil, rosemary and thyme.
Your edible garden can be as big as your backyard allows, or a handful of pots on your sunny patio. You can grow edibles in-ground or in raised beds.
Growing your own food gives you quality control. The freshest tomato you will ever eat is grown in your own backyard. When you grow vegetables, your cooking improves because you’ll have fresh ingredients on hand. Grow basil and you’ll think twice before buying the herbs encased in plastic at the grocery store.
Get Started Growing a Vegetable Garden
1-Small space gardeners can start with vegetables and herbs designed for patio growing. Sun-loving varieties of peppers, tomatoes and eggplants have names with “patio” and “tabletop” in their descriptions. You can find these jewel-colored fruits garden-ready in containers with trellises.
2-Personal opinion: everybody who works from home should grow cherry tomatoes. Look for indeterminate varieties like Sweet 100s and plant in full sun. Coffee breaks become garden breaks. Harvest a handful of tomatoes for lunch. Plant larger tomatoes like Romas for your favorite sauce recipe, and heirloom slicer varieties for the Gardener’s Best Bite of Summer: a tomato sandwich.
Tip: Buy tomato seedlings in spring for summer harvest. Go ahead and splurge on the larger-sized plants with blossoms and fruit for bragging rights on first tomato of the summer.
3-Herbs are a gateway to gardening. The fragrant leaves are enjoyable to touch in the garden, and they add flavor to your cooking. In fact, trimming herb stems and leaves counts as beneficial pruning. Basil is the most popular herb to grow in summer and grows well from seed or seedling. Look for varieties that are slow to bolt. That’s the flowering stalk that emerges in hot weather. Snap off the stem when it appears promote a bushy shape. Tuck basil plants in with your tomatoes, or in clay pots by your kitchen door.
4- If you’re a seasoned vegetable gardener, let this be the year you save money and time with drip irrigation. Install a system, leave for vacation and manage watering from your smartphone.
5- Closing the loop by composting. You can start a compost pile or try a kind of raised bed called a keyhole garden. These are raised garden beds with a notch like a keyhole. A typical keyhole garden is 6 foot by 6 foot by 2 foot. The keyhole is a notch in the side wide enough for a person to stand and access the compost basket. Add plant-based kitchen scraps, coffee grounds and crushed eggshells to the compost basket and water. Over time, the decomposing plant material nourishes the garden soil throughout the garden bed. Keyhole gardens are efficient and attractive raised beds.
Strawberries are Easy to Grow in Your Garden
6- Plant strawberries this spring. They’re an easy crop to grow organically. Look for June-bearing varieties for an abundant early summer harvest. Ever-bearing varieties produce smaller yields, but over many months. Strawberries grow best in temperatures between 60- and 80-degrees Fahrenheit. Strawberries like consistent moisture for a sweet crop.
Avoid cute planting ideas for strawberries like vertical planters that don’t offer enough soil or water. Thirsty strawberries dry out quickly in hot weather. Better choices are elevated garden beds or in-ground.
Plant for Pollinators
For some gardeners (including me), pollinators are the best part of gardening. You plan a party in spring for the guests who show up in summer.
Who are the pollinators? They’re bees, butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, wasps, even flies who do their part to pollinate plants. Sow easy-growing annuals like zinnias around your edible garden to increase yields. The bees will thank you by pollinating your vegetable plants.
Just like you please your friends and family when you cook their favorite foods, set out a feast for beneficial insects and grow their favorite plants.
Grow a Garden for Beneficial Insects
1-Encourage pollinator habitat by following organic practices and knowing your insect friends. Hand-pull weeds instead of using chemicals. When you spy caterpillars and other creepy-crawlies, use your phone to identify the critter (Google Lens or Apple photo id are free). A critter that may at first seem scary is likely a beneficial insect. (Just one percent of insects we encounter are harmful).
2-Place a “pollinator friendly” sign by your driveway (Etsy has options). Talk with neighbors and let them know in a gentle way the importance of pollinators. Ask for their cooperation if they’re using chemicals that may harm plants. Sweeten the ask by promising to share a beautiful bouquet of organic blooms, or tasty tomatoes from your garden.
3-A simple way to start is with zinnias. Buy a packet of zinnia seeds (they’re around two bucks apiece). Sow seeds in average soil or a container in full sun. Water until established and then watch the butterfly show. Look for zinnia varieties like Burpee’s ‘Cut and Come Again’ for jewel-toned bouquets of blooms.
4-Bees come early to gardens and butterflies arrive in late summer. In spring, plant late summer butterfly favorites like pineapple sage and Mexican tarragon. Pineapple sage is a woody herb that’s perennial in zones 8 to 11. In my Georgia garden, pineapple sage grows slow and steady until August, when it takes off like a rocket. The hummingbirds and butterflies love the red plumes that last until first frost.
Tip: Look for seed packets of pollinator favorites like zinnia and tithonia and sow them throughout the summer. When your garden fades in fall, zinnia blooms are the last breath of summer sunshine.
Grow More Native Plants
Native plants are a big topic. Let’s start with a definition: natives are the plants whose species are indigenous to your area. Grow native plants in your yard because they benefit wildlife, are often low-maintenance, and can be very attractive.
Popular native plants include coneflower, columbine, goldenrod, asters and oak trees, according to the National Audubon Society.
Get started with native perennials by first identifying what’s growing in your landscape. You may already have native asters and desirable trees in your yard. Google lens and Apple’s plant i.d. feature are free to use on your smartphone.
Find a local native plant society. These supportive groups often sponsor plant sales and their members can guide you in adding natives to your garden.
Some native plant groups sponsor “plant rescues” to dig up desirable plants from land that is to be developed. Become a plant rescuer and you can add free plants to your garden just for the cost of digging them up.
Start small with natives by planting a few in your garden, paying attention to their sunlight and soil needs. Be sure to water frequently in the first season to help them establish.
Build Native Plant Habitat in Your Backyard
Create new garden beds for native plants with sheet mulching (also called “lasagna gardening”). Native plants, in theory, grow best in your native soil and don’t need amendments. Some may be more adapted to coastal soils. In that case, add sand. Most plants benefit from compost or mulch while they’re getting established.
What to avoid: Tales abound of native plant gardeners battling HOAs for the right to plant a naturalistic landscape. For that reason, start by planting natives in your backyard, giving you a space to enjoy the plants and select what will work in your front yard.
For more info on. native plants, check out the National Wildlife Federation’s Native Plant Finder.
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