Gardening 101

The sun is shining and spring flowers are making their way out of the ground – with all the greenery coming out you might be inspired to find out if you have a green thumb yourself! But before you get started you’ll need to learn some basics, check out Gardening 101 to find out more!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Gardening can be as simple as taking a potted plants and setting in the ground. To start gardening you’ll need some space, whether it’s a patch on in your backyard or just a simple flower or herb box that can be set outside or on the window sill. Plants can have different flowering times, many people start small with a vegetable or berry – cherry tomatoes and strawberries are easy plants to start with and can be maintained to one pot.

Tools of the Trade

 Any gardening store worth their salt will be able to help you pick out the tools you’ll need, but it’s good to have an idea what each tool does before you get started. Look at the list below!

• Spade: A garden tool shaped specifically to help you move plants around without damaging other plants
• Shovel: If you have a big garden you’ll need one of these to turn over soil and dig larger holes for big plants.
• Pruners: Watch out with these, they look like massive scissors and that’s exactly what they are, meant for cutting back greenery (and cutting your own flowers) when your plants get overgrown.
• Watering Can: When you need to water the whole garden you can turn on a sprinkler, but sometimes just one or two plants needs watering, that’s where a watering can comes in!

Garden Talk

Learn some gardening terms so that you can feel like you can jump into the discussion with other green thumb go-getters! Here are a few you might hear:

• Perennials: A plant that lives for more than 2 years
• Annuals: An outdoor plant that only flowers or grows for one season
• Bulbs: A short stem that holds food for the plant, you’ve probably eaten bulbs and never realized it – just think about an onion. Bulbs can also be flowers though, like tulips and lilies
• Herbaceous: A plant with soft stems (as opposed to woody.)