Let’s start at the very beginning
Faced with green space for the first time, Julia Atkinson-Dunn felt blank-faced intimidation, with no idea where or how to start. But she persevered.
Last week I caught up with a close friend from Auckland. During our meandering chat we strayed into gardening, a topic new to our relationship of 10 years or so. We talked about the lacklustre performance of some of her potted plants, and I offered some advice based on my own trial and error.
We would never have had this conversation five years ago, a time when neither of us harboured much interest in growing beyond the odd indoor plant in our respective apartments. We wouldn’t have made it past the confused, ‘‘what do you think I do?’’ stage.
Yet, here we were now, with gardens and plantbased ideas that whirl around our heads at night and send us hunting for answers.
This conversation got me thinking about my own adventure from non-gardener to gardener.
My path into a full-blown obsession for growing was entirely wound up in two things – my stage in life and property.
Until the age of 34, as an adult I had rented and moved every three years. Not just house, but town and island.
My interest in design was fully focused on interiors, art and the precious possessions I could take with me.
I did love being in other people’s gardens, but domestic outdoor spaces were what I affectionately thought of as ‘‘life background’’.
In hindsight, my interests easily transferred to my current passion. But until we bought our Christchurch house with a garden (albeit a spiky and evergreen one), I had never had the urge to grow much of anything.
Now, this former ‘‘life background’’ is one of my life’s primary focuses. Five years down the track, the garden is central to my creativity, wellbeing, connections and even work.
From the comfortable level of experience I have now, it is easy for me to forget the blank-faced, intimidation I felt at where and how to start.
I found myself ready to go with the space, the time and the inclination to research – but still felt that gardening was a foreign language that might just be too hard to learn.
Through doing, listening and reading I have built a bank of knowledge I couldn’t have imagined would ever fit in my head.
However, perhaps the biggest lesson is that I didn’t need to know everything I do now to begin growing.
And I will never be finished learning, as the constant discovery of gardening is what keeps me engaged. The understanding that I am only scratching the surface both humbles and excites me.
This week, I decided to canvas my garden friends and followers on Instagram, asking them to list their perceived barriers to beginning to garden and, in hindsight, note their breakthrough discoveries that have kept them moving forward with their growing adventure.
Their responses felt all too familiar and were repeated many times. Combining each person’s initial blocks with their resulting discoveries helped me form what I hope is a reassuring list to give others the confidence to start their own garden.
Lack of knowledge
Consider this – if gardening is so hard, how is it that so many people do it? The best way to learn is simply by doing. Each plant you learn and choose to grow will be buried in your mind forever. You will rapidly gather relevant information as you grow by trial and error.
It’s true, too, that with gardening comes new connections and resources that may not have been obvious before.
You don’t have to learn how to garden in isolation. Ask family, friends and neighbours for advice. Staff at garden centres trip over themselves to help new gardeners.
Type in the most basic of your questions online, and be rewarded with free resources provided by gardeners the world over. YouTube, social media, websites and the library allow you to dip your toe into gardening as a beginner without investing too much time or money.
Your partner in growing is mother nature, which takes care of most of it. You just need to learn the bare basics to get started.
Lack of time
Gardening absolutely takes time. From preparing beds to starting seeds, transplanting and weeding, your garden also needs time to grow. There is no instant gratification here, but the enforced patience seems to have a magnetic appeal once you experience a successful result.
The time spent in your garden is actually the point of it all. Ten minutes spent weeding or deadheading is 10 minutes of self-care. Stolen moments of fresh air and your hands in the earth will change your life for the better. By all accounts, spending time working in the garden with children can also be a calming family activity.
Most importantly, your garden doesn’t need you to tend to it daily. Plants want to grow and don’t need supervision.
If life leads you away for a while, you’ll find that your garden is much more forgiving than you realise, and getting it back on track isn’t always the mammoth, painful job you imagine.
Expense
Growing a garden can be as expensive as you want it to be. You have choices at the level of investment you want to make at every turn.
I find that money can sometimes save me time, but if patient, exactly the same results can be achieved by taking a cheaper, albeit slower, route.
If creating your first garden, start small. Garden in containers if renting, or carve up a little piece of lawn to have your first go. Learning the difference between annual and perennial plants can guide your choices.
It is vastly cheaper to grow from seed, but this takes more effort than plugging in bought seedlings. After a year or two, many perennial plants can be dug up and divided to create an instant increase in your plant stock.
When buying tools, buy once by buying well. A good hand trowel will last you years, but the cheapest one will bend at the first dig of a potato.