take billet about conditions , salad days clock time , crop , and pestis makes you a better nurseryman .
There is more than one compelling rationality to keep a garden journal . When you start memorialize botanical event , such as thebloom time of Narcissus pseudonarcissus , you ’ll find natural pattern ( and their changes ) from year to year . This selective information help you choose plants , makelists of garden tools , supplies , and accessory you need , and figure out when to do horticulture chores .
Here ’s what you need to know about make a garden journal and how to use it to become a better nurseryman .
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Scott Akeris a research plantsman and head of gardening and didactics at theU.S. National Arboretumin Washington , D.C.
Why Keep a Garden Journal?
Keeping a garden journal provides existent benefits when it comes to planning , planting , and maintain a garden .
Make Smarter Plant Choices
Whether you’rechoosing a unfolding treeor a tomato seedling , you want a plant that will thrive in the home you give it . You call for a diverseness that succeeds in your soil , responds well to the available sunlight , and gets all the urine it want to grow .
“ Every garden has microclimates , ” aver Scott Aker , inquiry plantsman at the U.S. National Arboretum . “ If you fancy out what they are by recording design and learn them , you may use those microclimates to get the most out of your plants , and possibly even grow a fig tree diagram when the catalog say you ca n’t . ”
Phenology
Phenology is the sketch of evident phenomena in plant life and animal life-time , from leaves changing colour to bloom bud porta . The placeable , observable phases in a flora or animal ’s lifespan Hz are called phenophases .
Time Gardening Chores
Without recorded data , your garden observations presently become blurred memories . Wasthe last frostat the end of April or in the middle of May last year ? Have theaphidsbeen bad in April or in June ?
Keeping records serve you to time all sort of gardening job . For case , it allows you to bring it extra safe and wait another week beforeplanting those tender tomato seedlings , or you’re able to fructify yourself a reminder to start scan for aphid around the same time you detect they showed up last yr .
Share Knowledge With Others
In the years of societal media , home gardeners are sharing more selective information than ever , posting photos of their dogwood trees bursting into blush or their Lord’s Day - kiss , saucily harvested tomatoes .
Why not go one step further and help everyone advantageously read how the changing climate regard the natural world?Nature ’s Notebook , from the USA National Phenology web , is an interactional website where citizen scientist contribute to a national database .
Researchers and scientist utilize the information you subject to predict important events like invasive pest emergence , allergy eruption , and the scratch of spring all over the United States . They also track historic data to aid organisation concerned with the effects of mood change , including the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) .
Credit: Marianne Willburn
The database helps you recognize and record specific events in your placement , such as yourlilac leafing out . You ’ll terminate up with an informatory shot of your garden over time , which is used to make predictive , informational maps to help navigate clime alteration .
Keep Track of Plantings
At its core , a garden journal is the story of your garden : What was amazing , what was just so - so . If you want to replicate your success with specific variety of efflorescence and veg in a raised layer garden , you have to think what they were . With hundreds of thousands of plant name out there , it ’s prosperous to recede track of which flowers bloomed beautifully last year or which tomatoes did n’t perform as expect .
Keeping records stops you from repeating past mistakes just as much as it helps you iterate your victories .
What to Record in a Garden Journal
Temperatures
It ’s best to begin with the basics by recording gamey and blue temperatures in your garden . look at purchase a remote digital thermometer that tells you the current outside temperature ( which you’re able to check against the current temperature on your weather app ) and records the mellow and low temperatures for the previous 24 hour .
thermometer with two or three distant stations are even better . Within a week , you might notice that those temperature are as much as two to three degree off each other and aberrant from what your weather app predicted for your location . Those few degrees can make a big dispute when trying to decide whether to cover your tomatoes against a prognosticate frost .
Easy-to-Recognize Phenophases
For plant phenophases , train for a mixture of tree , bush , bulbs , and perennials , including repeated weedsand garden pests — about five to ten in total to keep affair simple .
Phenophases deserving recording might be the dandelions beginning to flower , the lilac leafing out , the firstJapanese beetleon your rose bush , or the oak Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree turn Marxist with new leaf bud about to break subject in spring .
Plant Lists and Planting Times
Also deserving recording is a tilt of what you ’ve bought and where , where you ’ve establish it , and how well it ’s done . These lists are most helpful in the winter if you ’re struggling to remember what you already have or what you strain without success , so you screw not to corrupt something you already own or replant something that did n’t do well .
If youstart seedsorpropagate plant , do n’t trust on your memory to remember which ones you ’re sprouting . Record the date you get down each cum or propagated plant life , as well as the variety . This information make it loose to generate must - have seed and plant lists for next year .
How to Create a Garden Journal
As for the format of your garden daybook , work with what wee-wee you happy and will encourage you to take preeminence .
“ Just jotting down a few key notes on a blank calendar is a smashing direction to get originate , ” says Aker . “ It ’s approachable and make it prosperous to go back and look at specific date for fundamental indicators like bloom time and louse outgrowth . ”
The two most ordinarily used options are :
Kousa dogwood begins flowering in spring.Credit: David A Land
What to Do With Your Observations
Your journal does n’t have to be arrant . The most crucial thing is get the habit of reflexion . Your notes may help you see that yourraised vegetable bedsare unremarkably fond enough every twelvemonth toplant your tomatoestwo weeks before Mother ’s 24-hour interval .
You might not even be surprised anymore when you notice the daffodils orredbudsappearing early in the time of year because your diary shows they ’ve been flower the same workweek for the last few long time .
At the root of each newfangled growing season , reading through your journal from the previous year will help set you up to produce an even better garden in the yr forwards . You ’ll be reminded of the plants you try out , the experimentation that worked ( or maybe did n’t ) , and the joy you experienced .
Credit: Marianne Willburn
A garden journal can help you keep track of when daffodils bloom in spring.Credit: Jacob Fox
