Top Gardening Tips For Beginners

When you’re a beginner, gardening can seem overwhelming. It can also be time-consuming and expensive, but there are ways to save time and money while maintaining a lush garden that will give you a healthy harvest all year long.

To help you out, we’ve rounded up some of our top gardening tips for beginners. These easy-to-follow tips will make your first year as a gardener a breeze!

1. Keep it simple

Keeping it simple can make all the difference when it comes to gardening. It will help you to enjoy your garden more and have less stress.

Keeping it simple also means that you have more time to focus on the things that matter. Whether it’s family, friends, or your favourite activities in the garden.

2. Don’t overwater

Overwatering is one of the number one killers of plants. That’s why it’s essential to understand the basics of watering and how to tell when you need to cut back.

The best way to figure out whether your plants need more water is to stick your finger into the soil a few inches deep and see if it feels moist or dry.

3. Take care of your soil

Soil is an amazing resource for plants, with vital nutrients and the necessary organic matter. It’s also home to a thriving ecosystem that includes earthworms, microbes and many other organisms that help improve soil health.

Taking care of your soil is the key to gardening success. Make sure to get your soil tested, which will reveal its pH, nutrient and mineral levels.

4. Be patient

Patience is an important personality trait to cultivate, and gardening is one of the best places to practice it. Gardening requires patience because good things take time to grow, especially when you’re planting from seed.

In addition, patience has many health benefits, including reduced stress levels and fewer headaches and skin breakouts. It also helps you cope with adversity and recover from burnout faster.

5. Don’t over-prune

Pruning is an important part of gardening, but it should be done carefully. Over-pruning can stunt a plant’s growth and cause it to become vulnerable to disease, pests and other problems.

During their growing season (typically spring), plants produce lots of new leaves and stems to give them more energy through photosynthesis, helping them grow bigger. Cutting off too many of these leaves can interrupt this cycle and shock the plant, resulting in death.

6. Don’t over-fertilize

Over-fertilizing is a serious issue for gardeners. It can harm your plants and even kill them.

Whenever you’re fertilizing, be sure to do a soil test first. This way, you can know what your garden needs and avoid over-fertilizing.

When you over-fertilize, the nutrients in the soil will leach out and runoff into nearby waterways, causing major damage. When this happens, the water will be toxic to wildlife and the environment.

7. Don’t over-seed

One of the most challenging aspects of gardening is figuring out which steps to take when. Luckily, there are a few tricks of the trade that will help you save time and effort when it comes to creating a healthier lawn.

The best time to overseed your grass is probably in the late spring or early summer. The main reason is that cool-season grasses like fescue and zoysis are at their most impressive, so you’ll be rewarded with a healthy green carpet that will make the neighbors jealous.

8. Don’t over-water

Watering is a key part of the gardening process. Not only does it ensure that plants get the nutrients they need, but it can also help prevent pests and diseases from wreaking havoc in your garden.

In order to avoid over-watering, make sure that you know how much water your plants need. The best way to determine this is to check the moisture level of your soil.