- Focus your goals
Food gardening is trendy among younger gardeners right now. It’s kind of the engine that’s driving horticulture these days. They know what fresh tomatoes taste like. They grew up with farmer’s markets and not canned food. They entertain outdoors and live in smaller spaces, perhaps a townhouse with a small garden or balcony. They don’t have alot of time, so they’ve learned to focus their goals, integrating food into a very livable garden space by growing beautiful vegetables and growing them ornamentally. - Buy local
I recommend that gardeners order seeds from a local company when possible, because they develop varieties that are best for the local climate. For tomatoes, it makes a huge difference whether they’ve been bred locally. - Choose “easy”
Because I want to spend less time on maintenance and more time just enjoying my garden, I’m always editing out plants and looking for ways to lighten the work load. This year, I’m going to replace a high-maintenance bed with a ribbon of ornamental grasses.I am a totally organic gardener. Everything I talk about in my book is organic. (I don’t even use slug bait.) I live in a non-hospitable rose-growing climate, and roses tend to get diseases here. So I have only one rose in my whole garden now. It’s a Westerland, which is an absolutely gorgeous rose. I grow the climbing variety because it’s just the quintessential iconic rose -– terrible thorns, though. It’s huge! It’s apricot and golden colored and very ruffled and fragrant. So I get a big hit of rose for taking care of that one rose. And it’s a very healthy rose. It has healthy foliage. The Westerland climber isn’t the kind of iconic tea rose that you can cut and bring in, but I do get to enjoy it in my garden.
For low-maintenance roses, check out Flower Carpet® roses. They seem pretty bulletproof and they don’t need pruning. They’re only about two or three feet high and they spread, making them a great groundcover rose.
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