Optimistic strategies for a better garden in 2025 – Part Two

Just to recap where we’re at, last year the garden got a little out of control for life reasons and this year I want to do better. This year I have a plan, and I’ve already shared some of my ideas and strategies for a more efficient gardening journey >here<.

But in a nutshell:

I’m going to develop a maintenance plan taking into account the specific needs of my garden.
I’m also going to finish what I start because I’m terrible at not taking things to the very end, although most of the time I’m nearly there. I have no excuse for doing this but am able to convince myself otherwise.
I’m also going to tackle regular garden tasks in a closed loop system picking up from where I left off rather than allocating tasks to days of the week, so nothing gets left out.

sorted garden — I love the look of sweeping clear paths

Just these three changes will make a big difference to the flow of the garden and how well it stays looking lovely. However, I’m not done there. I have more changes planned. Most are just simple tweaks but will make a huge difference.

Was I actually there?

I was listening to a podcast the other day that really resonated with me. It was a about a downsizing farmer who was talking about how he made his life easier with a less as more kind of philosophy and one of the things he talked about was when the job was finished make it look like no one had been there. What he meant was put things away when you finished using them, not at the end of the day or the end of the project. I am terrible at this, telling myself ‘Well I’m only going to get it back out again tomorrow.’ But then I have things all over the place and I lose a lot of time looking for things. It only takes a moment to return a tool to a hook. But when you have got yourself in a muddle it can take ages to find everything, sort out the spaces it should be and clean up. Essentially it is a little and often approach to garden organisation.

Put things away — I was wondering where I would have put that watering can…

So… I want to be that person, but it will be a big project to restore order in the first place to have that nice, organised space to return tools to at the end of a task, but I believe in me.

Don’t be a martyr – work smarter.

There is nothing like getting stuck in with your bare hands and feeling the soil as completed tasks emerge from your efforts. But I’ve come to realise that not everything needs to be done by hand, so I came up with a little ditty…

If it will do it better:

Use hand tools instead of hands.
Use big tools instead of hand tools.
Use power tools instead of big tools.
Get help instead of going it alone.
Pay and expert instead of muddling along.

It is about working smarter not harder to get the job done. It can feel nice to trim a hedge with clippers, but a battery-operated hedge trimmer will do it so much faster, and it will have the same outcome. I remember once back at the old place we tried for days to get a small tree root out of a garden bed and it was exhausting. So, we hired a guy. It took him 12 minutes with the right tools and cost us $25 dollars.

Power tools — Whipping through these weeds with the hedge trimmer made the job so much easier and faster.

So… I don’t need to martyr myself in the garden, I just need to work smarter. Not everything needs to be done on my hands and knees. Besides it is my own fault the garden is too big for an up close and personal experience for every job.

Record keeping

Journaling and taking notes is a really good idea in the garden so you know what you’ve done, when you’ve done it and how things went so you know what to repeat and what not too. But I’ve been at this long enough to know I’m never going to sit down each day and write a progress report in great detail.

Phone photos — Taking photos is a quick and easy way to document what you’ve done.

So… what I have found that works for me is to take photos. Before and after images remine me what I have done and why I did it. Photos of problems makes it easier to look up what it is and how to fix it. Photos are also time stamped so can be referred to from year to year. Even pictures of plant labels and seed packets can prompt annual maintenance tasks. Flicking through an digital album can remind you what you were doing in any week, what the weather was like and so much more. Don’t they say a picture is worth a thousand words? I’m going to stop beating myself up about not journaling anymore.

Take weeds seriously.

And my final reminder that I intend to make a bit of a mantra to remind myself of the consequences of ignoring my newly created expectations for the garden is:

Little weeds take minutes. Big weeds take hours!

I think these adjustments to the way I garden should be enough to deal with my weedy corners and restore joy and excitement where guilt, frustration and disillusionment was beginning to creep in. While the garden has inadvertently become my poor paying job, it is also something I actually love to do and spending even an hour pottering about makes me feel joyful and that everything is wonderful in my world.