6 Best Gardening Tips For Keeping Your Garden Beautiful All Year Round

Gardening is a great hobby, plus it makes your home look so inviting and beautiful too. If you have children then playing in the garden will do your children so much good. It is great to teach your children gardening skills – being outdoors and in nature will do nothing but good for you and your family.

Gardening comes with so many benefits, including being able to grow your own food. A garden also makes for a wonderful place to entertain guests and have family gatherings. Nothing quite beats a good outdoor braai (barbecue).

If you are new to gardening or perhaps you don’t have a lot of time on your hands to put in a huge amount of effort into your garden then these tips to keep your garden in tip top condition all year round are just for you:

Know Your Region

The first step to gardening is knowing your area and researching what plants grow well in your area.  Find out what plants grow well in your climate, how much sun or shade those plants need and how much water. Very often indigenous plants will grow best.

Knowing how acidic or alkaline your soil is will also determine the type of plants you can grow. It may be worthwhile to have your soil tested so you can determine which plants will do well. You can also ascertain if you need to treat your soil with anything to make it more suitable for the type of garden you would like.

Start With Easy Plants

If you are new to gardening and have no idea where to start, find out which plants are hardy and easy to grow in your area. Look at growing water-wise plants that do not need a lot of water or pampering. Trust me it is much harder to kill a succulent than a rose bush!

Some plants are very sensitive and need a lot of care to survive. If you are a busy person with only a limited amount of time on your hands you will want to choose plants that need the least care and attention.

Create A Plan

Research how big each plant grows, how fast it grows and when it grows. Some plants die down each winter or summer only to grow again the following season. Some plants only last for one season and don’t appear again.

You will want to put the larger plants towards the back of your garden with smaller plants in front of them. Make sure that each plant gets placed with the right amount of sunlight that it needs.

Maintain Your Lawn

Having a lawn will make your garden extra special and provide a wonderful place for your children to play. There is nothing better than sitting outside on the lawn on a hot summer’s day.

Follow these simple lawn care tips:

• Mow your lawn regularly – make sure to mow your lawn regularly when it is growing faster, for example in spring time. Make sure to keep your lawn at an optimal length – don’t mow it down too far or let it get too long. This will keep your lawn healthy.
• Make sure to water the right amount – you will need to figure this out according to the type of grass you have, the type of soil you have and the season of the year. It is so easy to water too much or too little. Spend some time getting to know your lawn and understand when it needs water and how much.
• Overseed patchy areas – you may find that when winter is over there are patchy areas on your lawn. Simply break open the soil and add new grass seeds to these areas along with some fertilizer and give it some extra watering to get the grass growing strong by the time summer approaches.
• Weed your lawn regularly – when you weed your lawn try and get the roots of the weeds up too, this will stop the weeds from spreading and regrowing. Over time it will get easier to control the weeds. This way you may be able to get by without resorting to any weedkiller. If you do need to use weedkiller make sure you use one that is specifically for grass so that you don’t kill your grass at the same time.
• Fertilize your lawn in spring – your lawn grows the most in spring making it the best time to feed and nourish your lawn.
• Scarify and aerate your lawn – after winter your lawn may have moss growing under it which you can remove through a process called scarifying. Then you will need to aerate your lawn so that there is lots of air and nutrients reaching the roots of your lawn so it can grow out strong and healthy.

Create A Garden Calendar

By creating a garden calendar you will know which tasks need to be done when, such as fertilizing your lawn in spring or pruning your trees at a certain time of year.

You will know which bulbs will be flowering and whether you will need to replant a flower bed. This will keep everything nicely organized so you can easily plan and fit these tasks into your schedule.

Schedule Time For Gardening

This is really important since a garden needs regular upkeep. If you have a lawn you will probably need to mow your lawn once a week or every two weeks. You will need to spend some time watering your garden – depending on the type of plants and the season you may need to water your garden every day.

For this reason it is important to set aside time on a regular basis to work on your garden otherwise you may find it really hard to maintain your garden and keep it looking beautiful.

If you know how much time you have available to put into your garden you will be able to plan better.