Dos and Don'ts Before Gardening

Very good morning Friends!

At the very first, before starting anything in your PAUDHAYAN, just throw out all the fears and doubts about it. Often, we tend to think about where to best keep the plants after taking them in our homes. This is the problem usually in urban spaces where we reside in small apartments with no land for lawn or garden, no open space except some terrace area and there is little or practically no sunlight at all. Some of us are so busy with our work that we do not have spare time for this. The problem worsens when we have frequent work-related field visits where we must stay away from home for long durations. So on and so forth.

Trust me, you can definitely start gardening and create a small Paudhayan of your own with good and healthy plants even with all these problems. You just have to choose the right plants according to your needs and lifestyle to make this happen.

Secondly, instead of increasing the count of plants in your garden, try to know more and more about what you already have. The first step after bringing a plant at home must be to know about its particular requirements about the sun, soil, water and environment. More often than not, we buy a beautiful plant from the nursery but are totally unaware of its needs and choices. As a result, within a few days, it withers away and gradually dies an untimely death. We, then blame ourselves for its unnatural demise and feel guilty and sorry. The cycle repeats until we lose all our motivation about gardening.

To break this vicious cycle of purchase of plant and its death, you just have to avoid the attraction of hundreds of colorful plants in the nursery and buy only the right plant as per your choice and capacity. Capacity means your ability to care for the plant and not your budget or financial capability to buy it. Always do remember, not every plant is for everyone. In the beginning, keep your experiments limited to the plants which are easy to care for. Try not to buy too many plants at once. Buy only as many plants as you can take good care of. Even better, if you can ask a friend or neighbor for some plants, seeds or cuttings.

Another mistake we make is that before knowing anything about gardening, we use to collect lots of tools and equipment for the purpose. Hoes, shovels, cutters, gloves, different types of soil, cocopeat, sand, gravels, fertilizers, rooting hormones and many other things are brought without knowing how to use them. Many of these are absolutely unnecessary for you. You will need only a few things and even without them, you will do great. You don't need to spend a lot of money on gardening. You can always make a beautiful garden at practically no cost.

So, how to start your Paudhayan and which plant can tolerate your complete ignorance, we will discuss all about it in our next post.

Till then Happy Paudhayan and Good Bye!