Are you fond of gardening? I bet you don’t know these common gardening mistakes. Learn what you should avoid and what you should do when gardening.
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Common Gardening Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
What You Should Know About Gardening
Gardening could look very easy at first but there are so many things to consider. Having a garden full of beautiful plants is just a little piece of a very big pie and there is so much more about it. Jumping into gardening may be tricky but there are a lot of tips you can pick up on the internet or by watching videos.
However, some habits that are taught online could hurt your plants more than helping them. So, we gathered a few common gardening mistakes some people do and tips on how to avoid them.
1. Proper Watering
Overwatering could definitely hurt and even drown the plants that could eventually kill them. Patience should be learned when gardening and watering the plants could take a while since the water will not seep through the soil immediately.
In addition to overwatering, the wrong timing of watering could also hurt the plants. Some would water their plants during the middle of the afternoon, which could do two things to the plant. On a hot sunny day, watering when the sun is scorching could make the water you pour evaporate giving the plant less water than you initially thought you'd give.
Another is the droplets of water that would stay on the leaves could act as a magnifying glass and could burn and hurt the leaves. What you could do is water the plants first thing in the morning or last thing at the end of the day.
2. Overcrowding
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Over planting or overcrowding means designing a landscape with more plants than can be adequately sustained with available space, nutrients, and water. Imagine a raised bed filled with plants with not much soil to cover because of how you planted the plants near to each other. There would be fewer nutrients and water for a single plant to leave making the entire garden suffer.
What you can do is to create spaces in between plants as to not to overcrowd plants and to keep them healthy giving you fewer worries about taking care of your plants.
3. Over Pruning
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Over pruning means removing more foliage or branches from an ornamental plant. Overdoing it is not healthy for the plants. What you can do is remove branches that are only needed to. Think about the landscape of your garden based on your plants and not think about how you want your garden to look like then let the plants suffer.
4. Overfeeding
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More is not always better, especially with feeding. Imagine yourself being fed constantly until you're full but you still have to eat. Wouldn't that harm you? It is the same with plants. The more you feed doesn't mean it will benefit the plants more. You need to take good care of your plants just like how you would take care of a person.
In line with feeding, fertilize appropriately. This means fertilizing at the correct rate with the right kind of fertilizer and at the optimal time of year.
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5. Poor Weeding
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Removing just the top of weeds isn't enough. There are weeds that have big and strong roots under the soil, such as thistles and dandelions, just removing the top wouldn't remove it. What you need to do is to dig deep and get as much root as you can to kill them. Using herbicides could help as well.
6. Take Care of the Soil
Taking care of the soil is as essential as taking care of the plants. It has been a common mistake that the quality and life of the soil being overlooked. Soil, just like plants, are living organisms as well and its condition differs in certain conditions.
Soil condition changes whenever there is a soil runoff, it depends on the amount of water it receives or doesn't, and even the lack of drainage. To fix this:
- The soil must receive the same attention as you would give on a plant.
- The pH levels and the water supply should be checked constantly to ensure the overall health of a garden.
7. Position of the Plants
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The positioning of plants has been overlooked by some as well. When building your own garden, the positioning of plants is as important as taking care of the plants itself. Positioning in terms of sun-loving plants being placed under shade.
It is common knowledge that plants get their nutrients and food from sunlight. And for sun-loving plants, imaging how important sunlight is. Also, imagine how it would like to receive sunlight.
As a common rule, it is vital to check how the sun passes through your garden and position your garden where it would receive enough sunlight for the plants to grow and live.
8. Out of Season Gardening
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This gardening mistake affects people who live in the colder areas rather than those who live in places with tropical climates. It is because of the cold and freezing climate that could potentially hurt or kill a plant because of frosting.
Planting seedlings out of season, like in the early stage of spring can potentially hurt plants and put your efforts into waste. The early planting could lead to late frosts if the plants are planted too early.
What you can do to prevent all of this is to check and follow the gardening calendar in your area and ask for advice from local gardeners to ensure a healthy and living garden.
Check this video from CityPortStLucie for more tips and tricks for gardening:
What do you think? Have you committed some of these mistakes? Now your garden will be the garden your neighbors will secretly covet!
Got any tips to avoid these gardening mistakes? Share your stories in the comments section provided below.
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Editor’s Note: This post has been updated for quality and relevancy.
