101 Gardener’s Resolutions and Plans
Plant and Floral Resolutions
- Grow the plants and flowers you like.
- Grow more flowers for cutting.
- Grow plants for shape, texture and form.
- Tie to supports Clematis, Chimonanthus and Climbing Roses to prevent wind damage and improve flowering.
- Increase the planting of scented Witch Hazel (eg. Hamamellis x intermedia Jelena).
- Sow Sweet Peas in deep pots and pinch out the tips when they have 5 leaves.
- Plan how the colour of flowers will look when planted. Use single colours rather than mixed seed packets.
- Collect and replant or distribute the seed from your own star plants.
- Grow plants that contribute over long periods of the year.
- Select and grow a shock and awe plant.
Eco and Environmental Resolutions
- Remember we must leave this environment for future generations.
- Grow fewer varieties but focus on nectar and pollen rich flowers that are local and help wild life.
- Improve soil with rotted compost and try not to compact the air out of wet soil by walking on it.
- Increase water collection and storage with linked butts or new collection points.
- Fumigate the greenhouse to get rid of fungal spores and overwintering pests
- Provide a range of different bird foods to attract various species. Blackbirds love a bit of a bite of an apple.
- Keep lawn edges neat and trimmed but have natural areas for wild grass and flowers.
- Use natural fertiliser and non-chemical controls.
- Reuse and repurpose old items rather than sending them to the tip.
- Use local and natural stone for your construction work. Airmiles on Indian paving and energy used to manufacture composition paving slabs are unnecessary uses of resources.
General Gardening Resolutions
- Reduce the size of plant clumps and shrubs and trees that are beginning to take over their allotted spot.
- Deadhead faded flowers to extend flowering time.
- Prune and trim when plants need it not just when you have the secateurs in your hand.
- Sow seeds thinly and thin out. Give plants appropriate space.
- Make succession sowings, only sow small quantities of a crop at each sowing.
- Split clumps of Snowdrops and Winter Aconites after flowering. They split best ‘in the green’.
- Create a low maintenance area to spend time elsewhere in the garden.
- Take full enjoyment out of your garden.
- Listen to advice but do as you please.
- Work with the weather it is all you’ll get.
Houseplants and Indoor Pots
- Check plants for pests before bringing them into your home.
- Keep Azalea and Cyclamen pot plants moist at all times.
- Flowering plants need bright light so position accordingly.
- Repot plants into larger pots if have consumed the compost or are in need of space.
- Add fresh compost to the top of pots when the houseplants are not growing as strongly.
- Keep pots of bulbs and flowering plants cool to prolong the life of the flowers.
- Many houseplants will benefit from some time outside in the middle of summer.
- Water the plants not the windowsills.
- Move plants around in the home.
- Try the exotic not the commonplace.
Win Friends and Influence People
- Grow more flowers and greenery for cutting and flower arranging. It should please those indoors
- Grow pots and containers of plants to give away. It is an easy way to use your surplus.
- Sharpen your blades and tools using a sharpening stone and wipe over with oil
- Look at your garden from your boundary and aim for at least one crowd pleasing feature for passers by to admire.
- Join your local horticultural society, you will get advice, make friends and may be offered free or cheap produce.
- Use the RHS and AGS for information and join these societies if you want to use the benefits of membership.
- Plant to visit flower shows and open gardens to see how the professionals design and execute a garden scheme.
- Beg cuttings or advice from other gardeners, they are usually a friendly bunch. I was once told ‘Everyone is entitled to my opinion’.
- Enter your local village show. It is the taking part that is important not the winning.
- Keep your boundary and pavements neat and tidy. Pick up litter and kill off weeds outside your house to make the street a better place to live.
Allotment Focused Resolutions
- Get an allotment!
- Alternatively increase cultivated area by a deal with a neighbor
- Mastered the art of successional sowing to avoid gluts.
- Grow more winter crops
- Store potatoes, butternut squashes, onions and shallots.
- Pick courgettes and runner beans regularly.
- Protect against carrot root fly, cabbage white butterfly and Pigeons before it is too late.
- Get more manure to hearten up the soil.
- Talk to other allotmenteers about successes and failures of the past
- Grow what the family will eat.
Gardeners Tips Resolutions
- Read Gardeners Tips regularly
- Subscribe to gardeners tips RSS feed
- Get Gardeners tips by email.
- Buy from Jersey Plants or Thompson Morgan by using Gardeners tips links.
- Comment on Gardeners tips.
- Link your web site to Gardeners tips.
- Advertise on Gardeners tips.
- Tell your friends about Gardeners tips.
- Nominate the best resolution from the list of 101 Gardeners tips new year’s resolutions
- Did I mention Gardeners tips for the best gardening tips?
Fruit and Vegetable Resolutions
- Grow more fruit and disbud so that apples, pears and plums grow to a good size.
- Grow early potatoes in containers or sacks such as International Kidney or Vales Emerald for something newer.
- Start chillie seeds early on a sunny windowsill.
- If I grow Chard Bright Lights in a decorative bed I must remember to eat the crop not just look at it.
- Two or three Marrow plants can provide all the courgettes a family needs. Try Defender or Green Bush
- Reshape old Apple trees during winter by pruning to get a bowl shape that lets in air and light.
- Divide congested clumps of Rhubarb .
- Feed the area around the roots of fruit trees.
- Consider more space for fruit such as Stone fruit, Bush fruit, Cane fruit, Soft fruit and Apple and Pear trees.
- Add lime to the soil where you plan to grow brassicas and leafy greens.
Fun Resolutions
- Give me patience but hurry!
- Apply perspiration in the garden regularly.
- If it dies its a flower if it lives its a weed.
- With a flower in one hand and a cold drink in the other, tell somebody else where to dig.
- Have pride in how bad your hands look.
- Learn by by trowel and error.
- The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and brown sauce.
- It is knowledge to know Tomato is a fruit but wisdom to stop putting it in a fruit salad.
- Go to the Yorkshire garden center where you can buy one – get one
- Grow your own dope … plant a man.
Restate the Blinking Obvious
- Do more weeding.
- Cut the grass regularly.
- Keep everything tidy.
- Water deeply when needed.
- Excel with the plants you already grow.
- Kill insects that cause damage.
- Stop infectious rot and disease.
- Turf out the dead and dying.
- Nature causes living things to suffer and die.
- Do not believe all you read in lists like this.
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