Make some resolutions for the garden
A new year is about to begin and many of us are making resolutions. Eating healthier, saving money and volunteering for a worthy cause are at the top of lots of lists, but how about making some garden resolutions?
Grow your own (or more) food
Homegrown fruits and vegetables are more delicious, more nutritious, and save you money.
Start early with cool-season plants like cabbage, kale, lettuce, peas, radishes, and spinach, and continue with beans, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and other summer crops. In late summer, begin another round of cool-season vegetables and enjoy fresh picked goodness through fall.
If you don't have room for a large garden, grow plants in containers. If you don't think you have enough sunshine, grow leafy plants that perform in shadier conditions.
Try something new this year. If you've never grown kohlrabies (my favorite vegetable), plant some in 2016. If you have yet to grow fruit, try strawberries or a blueberry bush in a pot.
Make your garden better for pollinators
Improve the diversity in your garden. Include native plants that bloom in every season and in a variety of heights and flower types. They provide food for pollinators and are best adapted to our growing conditions.
Plant milkweed for monarch butterflies. Members of the Asclepias family include swamp milkweed (A. incarnata), butterfly weed (A. tuberosa) and whorled milkweed (A. verticillata). If you choose to plant common milkweed (A. syriaca), be prepared to take measures to keep it from becoming invasive.
Reduce or eliminate pesticide use in your landscape. If you must apply insecticides, choose organic options whenever possible and follow labeled directions carefully.
Garden with a child
Pass on your passion to your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or neighborhood kids. Plant sunflower seeds together and watch as they grow taller than both of you. Give an older child a small patch in your garden to plant flowers for bouquets.
Show them where food comes from and nibble as you harvest. Peas right out of the pod, strawberries bursting with sweetness, and an afternoon snack of cherry tomatoes picked from the plant are precious memories in the making.
Even very young children enjoy a walk through the garden. Some of my grandson's first words were tree and flower.
Spend more time enjoying the garden
There is always another weed to pull, perennial to move, shrub to prune and pot to water. No matter how much time we spend, our gardens will never be perfect and that is OK. It really is!
Give yourself permission to stop gardening from time to time, to just sit and appreciate the beauty of the garden. Take a relaxing stroll through the landscape stopping to breathe in the fragrance of flowers, stroke the leaves, and savor flower forms and foliage combinations.
Pat yourself on the back for the effort put forth, the lessons learned, and the loveliness you are cultivating. Best wishes for great gardening in 2016!
• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist and the garden center manager at The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield. Call (630) 293-1040, ext. 2, or visit planterspalette.com.