20 Gardening Tips I’d Tell My Younger Self!

Most of us start a garden when we’re younger, and many of us still live with those gardens today. We learn as we go along, and although our gardens aren’t perfect, we still love them! But if you could have your tilling time all over again, what would you advise a gardener just starting out? We checked in with seniors and here’s what they told us!

1. Always grow your own seedlings. When you buy them in, you’ve got no idea what diseases or weeds you might be introducing to your garden via the potting mix they are growing in. And some of them can last for decades!
2. Care for your birds and bugs by growing organically and not begrudging them the last of your fruit and berries. They do far more to help our gardens than any chemicals.
3. Never plant mint (or lemon balm, tansy, or any other invasive herb) anywhere but in a pot. And make sure that pot is sitting on a hard surface where roots can’t reach through into your garden soil. If you don’t, you’ll be weeding these plants from your garden, forever!
4. Always choose grafted fruit and nut trees. They cost more but some non-grafted varieties take many years to produce a harvest – and life’s too short to wait.
5. Plant trees as soon as you think of starting a garden. Shelter is the key to good growing, and trees take time to become established.
6. As shelter trees gain height, fill in the gaps around their trunks with shrubby plantings to plug the wind gaps.
7. Cover up in the garden – skin cancer’s not worth the risk.
8. When it comes to planting times, test the limits, don’t follow the leader! Every garden is a microclimate and you may be able to grow what your neighbour can’t.
9. Plant for future generations. You may never see the chestnuts on a tree you plant, but your grandchildren will!
10. Don’t use weed matting! It’s made of woven plastic, and as it decays, the threads come loose, and can quickly entangle a bird by its legs.
11. Grow a flax for twine, non invasive bamboo for stakes, and a lemon to go with your gin!
12. Don’t plant cabbage trees – the leaves are slow to decay, quick to get caught in the mower blades, and make a great hiding place for possums.
13. If you don’t want to make work for yourself, build a fence, don’t plant a hedge.
14. When planting firewood trees, always leave an avenue through the middle of them – if you don’t, you’ve got no way to get your trailer in to collet the wood.
15. When it comes to giving away plants from your garden, be generous. That way, when you lose a favourite, you’ll have plenty of gardening friends to call on for a replacement.
16. If your section is sloping, build your compost pile at the highest point. Garden waste is lighter to wheel uphill than compost!
17. If you live in a cool climate, make a greenhouse a priority – you’ll never regret it.
18. Join a gardening club – you’ll learn more from networking than you will from a year in the garden.
19. Learn to sharpen your own tools – it will save you so much money over the years. Blunt tools also jar your back and shoulders.
20. Weeds aren’t a worry – unless you let them go to seed! If you don’t have time to dig up a weed, at least chop off its head!

If a younger gardener asks you for advice, have your three best tips at your finger tips – that’s all they’ll have time to listen to, but can save them years of regret.