What I wish I’d known about gardening
As part of National Gardening Week, 28 April to 4 May 2025, RHS staff shared what they wish they’d known when they first started gardening
How did your gardening journey start? Maybe you gardened with a grandparent, or joined a group to combat loneliness? Everyone has their own story to tell.
RHS staff are passionate about gardening but they have also had to learn along the way. Here they share their tips, trick and mishaps, to help new gardeners get the best start to their gardening journey.
-
Want to share your story? Join in on social media using the hash tag #YourSpaceYourStory
I wish I’d known...
I wish I’d known how much time I could have saved on seasonal weeding by covering as much soil as possible with cardboard and a layer of mulch; how much time I could have saved on tying in cordon tomatoes by simply wrapping them round a vertically placed string rather than up a cane; how useful
Leave the tidy until spring: when I first started gardening, I wish I had never done an ‘autumn tidy’ or thought that gardens in winter had little interest. Everything cut back, soil forked over - I would bask in the bare neatness. I now understand the essential wildlife habitat we provide in the garden, how plants protect and enrich the soil and the ornamental beauty plants provide during our coldest months: ornamental grasses backlit by low winter sun where small mammals find refuge; beautiful seed-heads carrying sparking frost offering bird’s sustenance; an interesting tapestry of texture and colour with little bare soil to be seen.
I wish I’d known that there is such a thing as too many pots...the watering, oh lord the watering!
Mo Marvin – Horticulturist, RHS Garden Rosemoor
I wish I’d known what an impact your local climate makes. Gardening in South Wales is completely different to gardening in the East Midlands. Right plant, right place, basically.
Tom Freeman – Garden Manager, RHS Garden Hyde Hall
Ian Bull – Garden Manager, RHS Garden Hyde Hall
I wish I’d known to grow more trees from seed - seed raised trees grow quickly once established and they overtake larger, container grown trees in time. The modern methods of growing in cells and then air pots mean tree roots are given the best possible start.
I wish I’d known that the most important garden of all is your winter garden, that’s when you need it – summer takes care of itself. The most joy you get will be from the red and orange and lime green stems of cornus, the winter flowers of hellebores or winter flowering camellias and if you can also incorporate winter scent with plants like sarcococca, winter jasmine and early crocuses you’ll have even more to put a smile on your face. By summer you don’t need the little things as the garden is abundant.
Heather Greig – Associate Editor, The Garden magazine
I wish I hadn’t planted shrubs too close together when they were small but taken heed of their eventual sizes.
Carly Hurd – Deputy Art Editor, The Garden magazine
I wish I’d known that where a houseplant comes from can help me decide where to put it in the house. That would have saved me a regrettable amount of money. So many deaths!
Emma Kendell – Editorial contractor, The Garden magazine
I wish I’d known that your garden is a process, not at all like ripping out your old kitchen and putting in a nice new one. I ‘sorted’ my first teeny-tiny garden then was really surprised that I needed to KEEP sorting it. Also, that you need to go to a few garden centres and pick up spades, forks, trowels, snips etc and try them for size, just as you would a pair of shoes, so you end up with tools that are easy and comfy to use.
Pete Adams – Team Leader, RHS Garden Rosemoor
I wish I had known to look after my knee’s better at the start of my gardening journey, it might have saved me a few aches and pains later on. If I had known 20 odd years ago that taking
-
Want to share your story? Join in on social media using the hash tag #YourSpaceYourStory
