How To Improve Your Weekend Gardening Experience

If you only have weekends to work on your yard and you are looking for a hassle-free garden it's vital to start the process now even though it is still winter. In this article I am going to look at giving you the first steps in helping you to achieve your goal of a hassle-free yard. Your goal should be to create a yard that practically takes care of itself and with some sound advice and understanding of what it takes to be a weekend gardener you can achieve your goal.

Don’t be like many who have never found a way to escape the prison of responsibilities and hard, never-ending work that a high-maintenance garden requires.

If you want to avoid this fate, you need to start by making a critical examination of the maintenance of your present yard and garden.

Start by taking a stroll around your property (if not actually then in your mind. Mine is still 2 feet under snow) and make note of how much time you take to tend to various areas. This can be done by thinking back to what it was like last summer.

• Which plants and areas require the most care?
• Which areas please you and take less care?
• Are there areas that you love and no matter how much maintenance they take you’re not willing to change?
• Can any areas be scaled down in size, or be improved by changing to a low-maintenance design or gardening technique?
• Where is the worst problem area for weeds?
• Where is the most difficult area of your lawn to mow?

There are very specific ways to correct your problem areas. As you think about your current maintenance problem areas you must think critically. Take a tour of your yard with a critical eye and a notebook. Make some notes to yourself about what you see, what you imagine, and what you are currently faced with.

As you do this preliminary overview, remember its okay to note what you "hate" to do, in regards to your gardening work. We want to get rid of these areas or problems first and foremost.

Everyone has a different take on this subject. Some hate mowing the lawn, others actually enjoy the exercise and like getting out in the sun. Some find weeding tedious, others will enjoy the process of grabbing weeds by the fistful and yanking them forcefully out of the ground.

So, part of your ‘yard tour' is to make notes of the areas that require work; how you feel about each one, and list which are particularly time-consuming.

Once you're done, take your list and put a mark (*) next to those items that you intend to keep no matter how much maintenance they require.
Then put a question mark (?) Next to the ones you enjoy looking at, but are nevertheless high-maintenance and take too much work. You will later discover timesaving techniques you can apply to these problem areas.

Now make it your aim to eliminate those areas that have been left UNMARKED. You'll want low maintenance ways to turn these areas into sources of pleasure, instead of drudgery. However, you can't DO anything to lessen the work load until you can first SEE the problems out there in your yard. So do this tour as a first step to achieve true joy and freedom in your gardening experience.

Less work more enjoyment “by the yard”