What bloomed? What lived? What was I planning for that empty spot and where is that empty spot?
A garden journal can help answer these questions as you struggle to remember what changes were planned for this summer.
A garden journal can be anything you feel is useful. It can contain cryptic notes: 4/2 Catalog seeds arrived; 6/22 Clematis bloomed; 7/18 Hornworms on tomatoes; 8/29 Zinnias sparse, try asters. This gives a no-nonsense framework for next season.
When you buy a new plant, keep the tag in the journal. Maybe Big Boy tomatoes were planted last year and didn’t produce enough fruit. This year try a different variety. During February when the magazines tantalize with lavish layouts of spectacular gardens, tear out those pages and tuck them in the journal as inspiration. Take those pages to the nursery.
When trees, perennials or anything with a guarantee is purchased, keep the receipt with the tag. Next year you won’t look at that dead plant and wonder where you bought it and where the receipt is buried.
Many garden journals are organized for three and sometimes five years in the same book. The information recorded year to year is invaluable for improving the garden and avoiding the same mistake made three years ago.
A garden journal also can include other observations besides the basics. As I am sitting in my favorite spot on the deck and smell petunias from the pot I placed under the tree, I jot it down in my journal when I go in the house for a glass of iced tea. Playing Frisbee with the kids into the night and noticing the Morning Glory MoonFlower blooming on the trellis is something I want to enjoy next year again.
I also want to remember the sound of bees drunk with pollen flying lazily around the blooming Redbud tree as a sign spring is really here. Counting the colors of the hummingbirds in the evenings visiting my radiant honeysuckle. The chirping of yellow finches splashing in the birdbath I bought just last week. The laughter of my children as they smash bright juicy strawberries in their mouths from the strawberry patch.
Is there a practical reason I record these observations? No, just that I enjoyed that day and want to remember it.
My garden journal is fat, falling apart and held together with a very large rubber band. It is five summers of successes, failures, disappointments and surprises. It is five summers of memories. It is five summers of my life.
I encourage you to begin a garden journal and reap the benefits of keeping receipts in one place, recording observations and plans for next season. I guarantee next year you won’t be asking the questions: What bloomed? What lived? What did I think of planting in that empty spot and where is that empty spot? You will know.
Kimberleigh Anders is a Colorado State University Extension master gardener in Douglas County.
