Credit: Geograph
We all want our homes to be beautiful, both inside and out. Although you may have your interiors more or less as you like them, many people find the garden to be a total mystery. If you want to start looking out your windows at a healthy and vibrant garden, rather than an overgrown jungle, here are a few traits that make a good gardener…
Experience
Just like everything, the best way to get better at gardening is… well, gardening! Though blogs such as Outdoor Ideas can offer some great tips and tutorials, no one can simply wake up one day and immediately know how to take great care of a garden. If you want to be a better gardener, sooner or later you’re going to have to – quite literally – get your hands dirty! A big part of your learning curve is going to be screwing it up, again, like most skills you can learn. You’re going to make mistakes and see investments go down the drain, but the important thing is to learn from these inevitable hiccups, and know what to avoid in the future. Remember that every new season is a fresh chance to adjust your methods, and get things right!
Observation
Credit: Flickr
Make a point of observing your garden closely, and you’ll naturally begin to notice changes in the plants you’re raising and the climate of your garden. With enough time and experience, you’ll begin to predict issues that can occur with your beds long before they actually happen. this, in turn, will make it easier for you to adapt to whatever the weather and the soil you’re working with throws at you. All kinds of things happen in our gardens that are totally outside of our control. There’s no way of predicting how cool and wet the season ahead of you is, and whether or not that basil you put down is going to survive the weather ahead of it. However, through observation, you’ll soon get used to the kind of weather that makes different plants unhappy, and in turn, do what you can to keep your garden as happy and healthy as possible throughout the year.
Persistence and Consistency
All plants need regular care to flourish. Becoming a better gardener isn’t quite like learning to knit. You can’t put some plants down following all the best advice, then come back to your garden several months later and expect everything to be just the way you left it. Getting into the habit of going into the garden on a regular basis is very important if you’re serious about getting better as a gardener. Obviously, you may not be able to get out in the garden every day, and tend to everything that needs it. However, if you want to hone your green thumb efficiently, you need to be making a point to garden as much as possible, bounce back from any mishaps, and develop some kind of consistency with your methods. This will make you much more likely to give your plants all the care they need.
