7 Steps to Get Your Garden Started
Much like writing blog posts, the hardest part of gardening is often knowing where to begin.
You’ve just moved into a new place, you step outside and are greeted by a wide yawning vista of half-alive lawn, a handful of sparsely planted shrubs and a dilapidated shed. Not hugely inspiring. I know, because I’ve been there.
Whenever I ask people what they find most challenging in their gardens, about 30% of the responses are ‘knowing where to start and what to do’. Which leads me to think that a blog post solving that exact problem might be highly useful. And fortunately past Casey just happens to have written several blog posts covering the key steps to turning your empty yard into a thriving oasis. If you haven’t discovered those posts yet, read on for a summary to get you (and your garden) going.
1. Take before photos
There is a surprisingly effective way to turn your blank canvas from a paralytic pit of overwhelm into something more motivating: start taking ‘before’ photos. Apart from the fact that I KNOW you will regret not having taken before photos once your garden starts to emerge and flourish, there’s just something about the act of taking the photo that is weirdly inspiring. In a way, you are making a statement, whether you know it or not. It says ‘things are about to change’.
There’s also a practical reason to take before photos: it will encourage you to view your garden more analytically. Try to capture every unplanted spot, every bare bed. Document how the light hits different areas of your garden and record all the solid, permanent structures that you’ll have to plant around. Look back over these as you consider different plantings schemes and garden layouts (you can even print them out and draw over the top of them to test out different ideas).
My garden, 2014
My garden, 2021
2. Understand the different elements in your garden
Work to understand these five main elements in your garden:
Your soil - Is it clay-based or sandy? does it harbour life or is it lifeless? Does it hold moisture or is it dry as a bone?
The sunlight - How does the sun hit your garden as it moves across the sky? How does this change with the seasons, or as nearby plants or trees get bigger?
The wind - Does your garden get battered by wind, or is it protected, calm and peaceful?
The water - How does rain fall in your garden? Are there dry spots at the base of walls or underneath trees? Is there a slope with pooling water at the bottom?
The wildlife - What animals live in your garden? What insects, birds, reptiles and mammals have decided to call your patch their home (and which new ones might you like to encourage?)
Answering those questions and thinking often about these five elements in your garden can really help you when selecting plants, improving your soil and making sure your plants are healthy and happy.
If you’d like to learn more, have a read of my recent blog post on exactly this topic:
3. Pick a garden style that suits you
It’s important to remember that - first and foremost - the person you are growing your garden for is: yourself.
Don’t feel like you need to impress anybody or create a garden in a style that just doesn’t feel like you. If your garden doesn’t match with your tastes, personality or lifestyle then you’re unlikely to feel motivated to go out and work on it and ultimately it’s not going to make you happy long term.
It’s not just about aspirational garden styles either. Have a think about what kind of style you can realistically manage to maintain and what styles will set you up for a feeling of success and achievement. If you know that you won’t have hours and hours to dedicate to your garden, opt for plants that can withstand intermittent neglect and go for a wilder style that celebrates the unkempt and the rambling. If your soil is dry and sandy and you just can’t see yourself amending it with piles of manure and mulch (and shudder at the thought of the sweaty days spent spreading all that around), go for a style that doesn’t require you to drastically change your garden environment - grow plants that actually like dry and sandy conditions - agaves, aloes and other succulents are a great place to start.
If you don’t want to grow your own food - you don’t have to! If you want flowers for your kitchen table, grow those! If you only want low-maintenance fruit trees and grasses, that’s perfectly fine. Ultimately anything is fine. But it does pay to have a think about it first, so you’re not starting out from a place of total confusion.
To help you work out what kind of style suits you, I’ve made a series of grow-guides covering some of the most popular garden styles and the kinds of plants they feature. Grab any you like (they’re free!) by clicking the download links below.
A caveat, though. This is in no way a suggestion that you need to limit yourself to any style at all! In my garden, a banana tree rubs shoulders with an agave, which sits next to a pond that is filled with native Australian river mint. I’ve plonked saltbush next to pelargoniums and South African ribbon bush shrubs sit alongside English garden roses. Eclectic is totally a style too, and there’s no need to box yourself into anything! If you want to you can fall in love with a million plants, attempt to grow them all at least once and then stick with whatever works - that is entirely your prerogative (and is pretty much what I did!).
Whatever you decide to do, I recommend using these guides as a way to get inspired and get started.
4. Work out your ideal garden layout
Great gardens aren’t made from plants alone. They need structure, shape and interest (as well as a few nice spots to sit!). The tricky part when you’re just starting out is making those first few decisive strokes. In some ways it’s just about gritting your teeth and diving in, but if you don’t know how to take the plunge I have a few suggestions that have really helped me.
Check out my 10 tips for landscaping your garden (below) for some easy, low-pressure and not-at-all-scary ways to get over your beginner-gardener’s inertia and start building yourself the kind of garden that will make you want to start demolishing parts of your house so you can expand your growing space instead.
5. Encourage wildlife and embrace ‘pests’
A lot of beginner gardeners waste a lot of time (in my humble opinion) worrying about ‘pests’ and ‘weeds’ when they could be having fun. And I definitely don’t blame them. We are tricked into doing this by businesses that want to sell pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. It’s nothing more or less than good old, tried and tested fear-based marketing and it’s doing none of us any favours. Certainly not the bugs we’re spraying!
You will save yourself so much time, effort and angst in the long run if you decide to accept all animals in your garden from the get-go and don’t stress too much about weeds. Yes, maybe sometimes this will result in crops that get eaten or a few stray dandelions popping up in a forgotten garden bed. But as you continue to plant, and learn and grow your garden, you will start to notice ever-increasing diversity in the animals who decide to call it their home. This diversity is your biggest asset in protecting your crops from bugs that might want to eat them. What’s more, as your garden grows, the plants you do want to grow will tend to shade-out and out-compete many of the weeds you previously struggled to eliminate.
Basically, its SO MUCH MORE FUN just planting things and watching life spread through your garden. My rule of thumb: add, don’t subtract. Add plants that attract beneficial bugs, propagate plants that grow easily in your garden conditions and use them to fill up every free space so that weeds don’t get a chance to take hold. Put your energy into creating life and nurturing whats there and ignore the messages that pressure you to ‘eradicate’ or ‘control’ your garden.
Not convinced? Still think ants are evil and slugs are a pain? Have a read of my two blog posts on ‘pests’ below. They’re not as bad as you think - I promise!
6. Always be curious
It’s impossible to know everything there is to know about gardening. Every time I hear an expert gardener speak they acknowledge the fact that, despite the breadth of their knowledge and experience, they are still always learning. I think gardening predisposes people to be humble because, well basically, our plants are always dying!
The more I learn about gardening, the more I am aware of how little I know. You could see this as a cause for frustration or demotivation, but how boring would it be if we always knew exactly what was going on. Plants, like all living organisms, are hard to perfectly predict.
Case in point: two years ago my mum planted six caper bushes down south. According to www.caperplants.com (who I am assuming is an authority on the matter) ‘The best growing conditions for Capers is in the full sun, planted on a mound of well drained material over good rich soil. Caper plants needs a hot and dry climate’.
Well, she has no mound that I know of, and the soil in their garden is lovely and rich but with a reasonable amount of clay it’s not exactly free draining. So in the winter everything is frosty and foggy and wet. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, five of her caper plants withered and died in their first year as soon as the cold weather arrived. The sixth? It flourished! And she has no earthly idea why. Like people, maybe this particular caper plant just had slightly different proclivities to its kin. And like so many other gardeners before her, and so many still to come, Mum has no real alternative than to accept this curious caper and appreciate it’s stoic resilience (and maybe try to propagate it!).
In my opinion, the best approach (given that our plants will always be surprising us) is to decide to be eternally curious and enjoy the opportunity our gardens afford us to be students forever. That said, here are some of my current favourite reads to pique your garden curiosity further:
Down to Earth by Monty Don - this book totally shifted my perspective around pest control, it’s beautifully written and an absolute joy to read!
The Well Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith - this book has confirmed all of my long-held opinions about the psychological benefits of gardening - it really is such a valuable way to spend our time for our bodies and minds!
Garden Myths (https://www.gardenmyths.com) - this website is great for debunking all sorts of myths around our gardens and can be a great resource for checking whether or not a particular job in your garden is really worth your time!
7. Enjoy the process
The last step to get your garden started is to make a point of enjoying it from the very beginning. When you’re just starting your garden it can be easy to focus on the whole job - the entire mission you eventually want to accomplish. Instantly, it gets overwhelming and feels like work.
It’s far better, instead, to remember that no garden is ever finished. You’re in this for the long haul so you may as well enjoy it! Start out by setting achievable goals and accepting when things don’t go to plan. Know that, over the years, a not-insignificant number of plants will die, get eaten, wilt, be forgotten, go thirsty, starve and snap. Embrace the casualties and imperfections and remind yourself that really no one is doing that much better - we are all busy killing and caring, nurturing and neglecting, learning and forgetting and we always will be!
Instead of aiming for perfection or a finished product, commit - from the start - to enjoying your garden. Make that your priority. Smell the flowers when the bloom, taste fresh herbs right off the plant, nibble the edible plants, even when they’re pungent or spicy or weird.
Actually, here’s one you really all have to do: don’t ask me why, don’t question it or try to find a deeper meaning, just get down on your hands and knees and eat one of your lettuce plants like a cow!!! There is no reason or rationale behind this suggestion other than I did it and it was weird and fantastic.
Just make sure to spend time in your garden. Hang out with the animals that live there, watch as the seasons change, as morning turns to day turns to afternoon and night. Notice when plants bud, or fruit or bloom. No matter what you grow, in the end remembering to enjoy your garden is what makes the whole exercise worthwhile. The other tips in this post will help you get your garden started. This last tip will keep you there.