New Year, New Garden: 7 Resolutions for 2024 - Gardenista
The best laid plans for the garden are usually made in the dead of winter, when short days give us long, cozy evenings to dream up a new project or pore over seed catalogues in anticipation of next summer’s borders. 1. Keep a garden notebook. Photograph by Eva Nemeth, from Milli’s debut book From Seed to Bloom. Making a note of key flowers to grow with floral designer Milli Proust’s cottage window. A notebook is arguably the most underestimated tool for the gardener; making notes, lists, and sketches through the gardening year, both in your own garden and when visiting others, will keep plant names and plans all in one place. 2. Ditch the impulsive plant shopping. South Wood Farm in Devon, England, designed by Arne Maynard. Photograph by Britt Willoughby Dyer. In my garden there is always a table through the growing season of plants that have not yet found their spot—a collection of impulse purchases... ...bought during over-excited, under-planned visits to the plant nursery, that are then neglected there was never a set plan for them. 3. Make more space for messiness. The dovecote at Old-Lands in Wales. It doesn’t take much to create habitats for wildlife: Undisturbed corners... Photograph by Britt Willoughby Dyer. ...dead hedges, log piles, fallen wood, leaf mounds will all provide useful hiding places and habitats for the creatures that are fundamental to the health and life of your garden. Photograph by Sabina Ruber, from Vanessa Berridge’s Three Generations of Women Gardeners. The rich planting at Kiftsgate Court Gardens. I can get a bit lazy in my approach to the annual mulch... ...but this past summer, while comparing my borders to pictures taken a few years ago, it became clear that it needed a significant boost come winter. Narcissus ‘Pheasant’s Eye’ is planted in swathes in the meadow at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent. But tulips, perhaps the most popular of the spring bulbs, are one-hit wonders for most of us, even when planted in the garden. 5. Invest in naturalizing bulbs. Photograph by Clare Coulson. Niwaki shears in action. It won’t stop me from losing my hori hori in the borders, but gardening will be much more enjoyable with secateurs that have been properly cared for. 7. Take time to sit and stare. A stone “font” is surrounded with a square of unmown meadow in front of a loggia where visitors can sit and view the garden at Wollerton Old Hall. Photograph by Clare Coulson. Looking after a garden is hard work and it can become a tough task-master in the peak of summer when, despite all the beauty, there is always something to be weeded or watered, dead-headed or pruned.