We all love to keep a green and appealing garden and lawn and also be very proud of the same. After putting in so much effort, time and money, it is only natural to want to protect it from any kind of damage. But have you ever thought about how can you protect your garden from being damaged? There are many common gardening mistakes that people usually make while gardening for their home or office.
Don’t Kill Your Plants With Water
The biggest mistake that most people make in their gardens is drowning them with water. While plants will need plenty of water before they are planted, too much after can lead to rot growing on your root systems and kill off your plant. Generally speaking the soil should only need a bit of watering every day if at all possible, especially during dry weather or warm temperatures. If you have a garden hose, it’s best to use soaker hoses that slowly drip water through the soil and directly onto the root system of your plant.
The folks at harpersnurseries.com have stated that this is one of the biggest mistakes that home gardeners make, and it’s not something you should do. Another important thing to consider while watering your plants is soil type. Different types of soil will need different amounts of water, so if you’re working with clay-based soil, you’ll want to avoid drowning your plants as much as possible because they don’t drain well, which can lead to a myriad of problems for your plants.
Don’t Let Your Plants Sit In Waterlogged Soil
Another common mistake people make is allowing their plants to sit in a pool of water after they’ve been watered. This can be from natural rainfall or from irrigation systems that fail to drain properly, causing puddles to form. It’s important for your plants that their roots receive proper drainage as well as air circulation to dry out between watering times. The result will be healthier, happy plants that aren’t susceptible to disease and rotting away at the base of the plant. If this happens, your plant will most likely die.
So what should you do if your plants are affected by waterlogged soil? Try to take them out of the ground and allow them to dry off for a few days before replanting them again, only this time choose to create better drainage around them so that water can drain away from their roots. If this has happened, you should also pay attention to the amount of rainwater or irrigation system water they receive as well because too much can kill even healthy plants. You should also try to avoid overhead watering or using sprinklers, which will cause your plants to sit in the water longer than necessary.
Don’t Break Plant Ties
It’s very common for gardeners will cut their plant ties, so they can plant their seedlings elsewhere or re-position them. But it’s very important to ensure that your plant ties are not cut, or at least are not too short. You should always leave some slack so that you have room to move your plants around if needed without breaking the ties down completely. If you cut your plant ties too short, this will result in broken vines and even snapped trees. You should ideally keep all of your ties on until they’ve started to grow into whatever is holding them up. Once this happens, then you can try cutting back the ties with garden scissors, but only once enough new growth has formed along the stem which is strong enough to hold itself up for a period before needing more support again.
Don’t Wait Too Long To Plant Your Seedlings
We’ve all been there. It is a lovely Spring day, and you decide to get your vegetable garden ready for another season. You whip out some seeds and start wondering where you should place the tomato seeds while they germinate. The biggest mistake most people make is waiting too long before planting their seedlings because if they fall over, it’s hard to get them upright again without damaging or killing them off.
Also, by planting them too early in Spring, the plant may still not be large enough to handle supporting itself when summer comes around. But on the other hand, if you plant seedlings too soon after winter, this could also cause many problems with potentially cold weather planting time, and you go to the garden centre looking for tomato seedlings, only to find they’ve almost sold out. Once planted, all should be well if done so properly, but if your seedlings are left on the ground for too long before being planted or during planting time, it can be very difficult to keep them upright due to their weak root systems.
Be Careful Not To Over Feed Your Plants
When it comes to fertilizers, there is such thing as too much of a good thing and this can very well kill off your plants, as our bodies would do if we consumed too much water. One tablespoon per plant may be excessive, especially for small seedlings, but once they grow larger you should only have to feed them about one teaspoon per plant. If you are planning on replanting your seedlings into bigger pots or planters then the amount that’s being recommended will work just fine which is why most gardeners recommend using seashells when planting in containers because these tiny pebbles help with drainage so by adding some fertilizer afterwards with proper care, any problems might become easier to deal with.
When growing new plants, it’s best that you pay close attention to how they are developing so that you can figure out what works and doesn’t work for your garden, but hopefully following the tips listed above will make your gardening experience less frustrating and more productive. Good luck!