Do You Want to Start a Garden But Don’t Have a Green Thumb? Read This.

Posted on Feb 08, 2024 Topic : Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Stacy Ling

While I’m an avid gardener now, I didn’t grow up with a love for gardening. Is that weird? You’d think that for someone who’s as into flowers and plants as I am, I would have been growing things my whole life, perhaps inspired by a talented gardener in my family, but that wasn’t the case.

My gardening journey began with a few houseplants in that tiny condominium. And I can honestly tell you that I did not achieve success with them. I repotted them, watered them, and tried to give them enough light, but they didn’t survive. I wondered, Was it me? Maybe being a plant mom just wasn’t my thing.

Now, I am not one to back down from a challenge, so I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and decided to try some outdoor gardening instead. I shopped the local nursery and found some pretty light purple impatiens. After bringing them home, I planted them, watered them, fertilized them, and you know what?

They grew!

And so did my confidence as a gardener.

From that point on, I was smitten with gardening. And it wasn’t too long after I achieved these small gardening successes that I begged my husband to move to a house with a little bit more land so I could grow a bigger garden.

As soon as we arrived at our new home, I planted every square inch of the foundation beds with annuals and quickly started working with perennials. I was eager and determined to grow flower gardens all over this half-acre property.

And wouldn’t you know? Those gardens did really well. So, I started a new garden from scratch so I could grow more flowers.

As the years went on, I experimented with more plants, discovered new types of flowers, expanded my gardening spaces, created cozy outdoor gardening rooms, and even found some success growing indoor houseplants too.

So, what happened? How did I go from plant killer to plant parenting boss? I discovered I had been working with the wrong plants.

They were the wrong plants for my home, my light conditions, and my lifestyle. Not all plants are created equal. Some are easy-care and some are just downright fussy. And if you are just starting out like I was? You will want to learn how to garden with an easy-to-grow, easy-to-care-for, low-maintenance approach.

Start small, achieve success, and grow your knowledge from there. Because knowledge doesn’t just come from books, the internet, or a YouTube channel. It comes from just doing. Learning the things that work. And learning the things that don’t. What works for me may not work for you in your garden. But the only way to really know is by doing.

So, find your inspiration, do a little research, and just try things!

The key to becoming a successful gardener is not in knowing every Latin name and horticultural term for plants, but rather in finding joy digging in the dirt, nourishing your soul, and learning about the needs of various plants in your specific microclimate.

And don’t take it to heart when a plant succumbs, because trust me, even the best gardeners lose plants every now and again. It’s part of the process, and sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be.

So, while you may or may not have killed plants before, trust me, you can start, learn, and be successful at growing beautiful blooms.