Get started with plans for next year’s garden
As the old year passes, it’s time to prepare for spring. The first step in planning for a new season in the garden is to think back, according to Julie Janoski, Plant Clinic manager at The Morton Arboretum.
“Try to remember the garden last spring and summer,” she said. “If you can recall how you were using your yard and what was going on with your plants, it’s good guidance for what you need to do this year.”
It would be ideal to have records from throughout the last growing season, so you would know the names of tomato varieties that got diseases, shrubs that failed to bloom, and areas of the garden that need more color. However, it’s a rare gardener who maintains such records, Janoski said. “At the best of times, not a lot of us actually take garden notes,” she said, “and 2020 had other things going on.”
To spur your memory now, try scrolling through the photos on your phone, or looking through other photos you took during the growing season. There’s good information not just in pictures of plants, but in the backgrounds of snapshots taken in the yard. “You may be reminded of how much you needed to prune a certain shrub, or how pretty it was in fall,” she said.
If you use social media, check back over your feeds — maybe you mentioned that tomato disease. Saving the plastic tags from everything you plant is another way to prompt recollections at planning time.
Here are some questions to think about as you recall last year’s garden and prepare for the new season:
What did you like? Think beyond flowers and plants to experiences: The cool shade of a tree, playing on the grass with a toddler, picking your first homegrown peppers. Which gardening tasks did you really enjoy, and which ones seemed like drudgery?
What did you dislike? Many people spent more time than usual in their yards last year and discovered room for improvement. If you didn’t have enough shade, maybe this is the year to plant a tree that will shade the yard when it grows larger. If you grew tired of picnicking on the grass, it might be time for a patio. If you realized how ugly your old crab apple tree gets in July and August, maybe you should replace it this year with a newer variety bred to resist disease.
What is a given? Some things are fixed: your house; a big, glorious tree, if you’re lucky enough to have one; the building next door that casts part of your yard in shade half the day. Knowing the basic conditions of your yard — its measurements, its shape, what areas are in sun and for how long each day, where the shadows fall and the consistency of your soil — is the first step in any garden planning. “It’s always better to choose plants that can work in your conditions than to try to change the conditions to suit a plant,” Janoski said.
What can you change? Could more varied and interesting plants replace a big, dark evergreen hedge? Does the backyard have to be all lawn, or could you use part of that space for a vegetable garden, perennial flowers or flowering trees and shrubs?
What’s down the road? Think about how the yard, and the people who use it, are likely to change in future years. Trees will get larger and cast more shade. Older people may appreciate a path with a smoother surface. Will the backyard vegetable garden you’re planning leave enough room for a swing set when the baby grows up a bit?
“You can’t anticipate everything,” Janoski said, “but the more you think things through when you’re planning what to do in the garden, the more likely it is that you’ll enjoy what you plant and create for years to come.”