You Need Garden Advice, Not More Garden Products

How many people begin their gardening ventures at the plant store? They buy a plant that catches their attention, bring it home, and then watch it die. As they pick up the last of the brown leaves to fall off the plant, they think to themselves, "I just don't have a green thumb."

If you've killed your fair share of plants from the plant store despite having the best of intentions, I want to tell you it's not your fault. Our garden industry is flipped upside down. Currently it's focused almost entirely on products. Buy this, buy that. Unfortunately, bringing home a plant and some fertilizer without learning how to grow that plant or whether it even likes your garden setup is a recipe for failure.

Instead of starting at the store, start with a person. Someone who knows how to garden and who particularly knows how to garden in your area.

Ways to Find Help to Start or Improve Your Garden

You can get lots of free garden advice by connecting with your local extension. That being said, if you can afford to hire someone, I highly recommend finding the nearest certified garden coach. I love the saying "people who pay pay attention." Overall, you can get much more out of hiring someone to help you, even if it's just for one hour-long coaching session.

Garden coaches are trained to help you learn how to grow in your own space, how to increase your chances of finding quick success in the garden. And when it's time to purchase products like seeds, soil, plants, etc., they'll steer you toward what's right for your setup.

At the very least, find some gardening experts in your area on social media so you can see what they're planting in their own gardens. Sign up for any gardening classes or gardening workshops they offer if your budget doesn't allow for one-on-one coaching sessions.

If you are able to hire someone, look for these three things.

What to Look for in a Garden Coach

one: they're from your area

While there are general principles of gardening that hold true for most areas, there's no substitute for local knowledge from someone who's gardened in your climate, who's having the same amount of rain, sunshine, storms, and winter as you. Local is always best, and finding a garden coach who is gardening in your town or city sets you up for success.

two: they're a great teacher

You want to find a garden coach who's helped others learn to be successful in the garden. There's a difference between someone who is successful in a field and someone who's successful in a field and can teach it to others. Just because someone knows how to garden doesn't necessarily mean they have a clear way of conveying that to other people. Ask to see their work with other clients to see who they've taught.

three: they can help you make a step-by-step plan

The best coaches are the ones who've taken all their experiences in the garden and created a framework to pass their knowledge to others in clear, easy-to-follow steps. They should simplify the process of becoming a successful gardener for you.

Now, let's look in more depth at how you can benefit from hiring this type of garden coach.

You'll Unlock the Gardening Possibilities for Each Month Where You Live

If you're a beginner gardener, you might scroll through pictures of gardeners in different states growing something that isn't yet possible in your area due to the weather and become confused. You might see garden advice intended for nationwide appeal ("March is the time to start your garden" or "Prune your tomato vines in August") and feel overwhelmed trying to understand what you can grow when. In reality, gardeners in Florida will not be growing the same thing at the same time as gardeners in Maine.

Gardening is so area-specific. You need a garden coach who's an expert on what you can expect to grow in your garden in your specific town or city. They'll be able to give you a rundown of what you can plant every single month of the year based on your climate. They might even open your eyes to plants you hadn't considered before and build excitement for what you'll plant in the next season. Maybe you had no idea you could grow your favorite eggplant variety for so many months of the year.

There's always something to look forward to when you know what will be possible during the different growing seasons in your garden.

You'll Get Garden Advice Tailored to Your Situation

Whether you're setting up your very first garden or troubleshooting an existing garden, a garden coach can help you grow to the next level. Meeting with a garden coach is an opportunity to gather as much wisdom as possible from this gardener who's a couple steps ahead of you in their garden journey.

Everything they've done in their own garden and all the clients they've helped before you will shape their advice for you. They're bringing so much practical hands-on experience of gardening in your area to the table, and they're going to be able to speak to your situation so much better than something you saw on Pinterest or read in a garden blog.

Your garden coach can chart what you'll learn in a short period of time if you work with them and how your knowledge will build on itself over the next couple of years. I've found that knowing where you're headed helps to prevent feeling overwhelmed or frustrated in your first few months of growing. Gardening ability is not something you're either born with or not. It's a skill that you can acquire, especially with a great mentor at your side.

You'll Know the Best Location & Layout for Your Garden

Choosing a spot for your garden can be intimidating. A lot of my clients initially want to hide their gardens behind sheds and garages because they're worried it'll look unsightly. A garden coach can help you find the right spot based on your desires for the garden.

Maybe you want your garden to be as beautiful as possible. A coach can help you select a location and even create a garden design for something that will enhance the aesthetics of your home and increase the value of your property. You'll be able to look out your kitchen window and feel pride at how your garden looks, or have your garden as a relaxing backdrop for your home office.

If your goal is to harvest as many vegetables from your space as possible, your consultant might lead you to select a different area in your yard to maximize sunlight and therefore production. They can also help you figure out how to grow as many plants in your space as possible or which plants to prioritize to maximize harvests.

A garden coach wants to give you a garden space you'll love. They're here to guide you toward what'll work best for you.

You'll Realize Your Garden Goals

We humans tend to leap into projects without pausing to ask ourselves what we really want to get out of the project in the first place. Before you hire someone to help you in your garden, figure out what your garden goals are.

Maybe you want an educational experience where you get to learn from your garden—how things grow, how the seasons affect growth potential, how a seed turns into a plant that produces more seeds. There are endless opportunities for learning curves in gardening.

Maybe you want a relational experience. Your garden will be a place for your preschooler to explore or a place for you to chat with your teenager and harvest together. Maybe your aging parent is coming to live with you and you want your garden to be easily accessible so that you can all enjoy the space together. Maybe you'll welcome neighbors to come visit your garden or host parties there.

Can you have more than one goal? Certainly! It's rare that someone only wants one thing. Rank your goals so that you can be clear with your garden coach what you're hoping to get out of your space. This will guide your entire conversation so that they can steer you toward a garden setup that'll meet your wants and needs.

Sometimes your goals and expectations might need a bit of a reality check, and your garden coach can certainly provide that. If you have room for a 20-square-foot garden but have a mile-long list of vegetables you want to grow, your consultant can help you rein in your expectations, prioritize the things you'll most love to grow and eat based on what you can actually produce in your particular space and climate.

You'll Get Support Planting & Tending Each Season

A lot of newish gardeners plant their gardens and then ask, "Now what?" It's the tending part that can cause a lot of confusion and frustration. You can hire a garden coach to come to your space for a single session to coach you through what to do in your garden. Many coaches even offer subscription-type services where they'll come every quarter, every month, maybe even every week, depending on your needs.

Another option for those who are too busy or unable to tend their gardens at times would be garden maintenance. Many coaches offer this service. They basically come to your garden at regular intervals to prune, fertilize, deal with pests, etc. Or they might come plant your garden up at the beginning of a growing season.

Coaches offer all kinds of services to fit your needs and keep your garden growing.

Get Garden Advice for Beginners

If you're reading this and thinking, “I don't know if there's anybody like that in my area,” well, ding, ding, ding! At Gardenary, we're here to connect you to local coaches who have a passion for teaching others and who've been trained inside our Garden Consultant Certification program to create frameworks for their clients to follow.

We train an ever-expanding community of talented coaches who are starting their own businesses in cities and towns across America (even some in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). Find garden help near you. You can rest assured that these coaches know how to guide you toward success.

We're on a mission to train thousands of gardeners to start their own garden business so that we can flip the garden industry from products to people. I want to become the Airbnb of gardening, a platform where people can come to search for a garden consultant and get the help they need in their garden to move to the next step. That is the vision—a new and improved garden industry that's actually focused on helping you become a gardener!