Knowledge Of Plants In Your Yard

Like all living things, plants have basic needs that must be met in order to survive. Water, food and light are the obvious requirements, but even these basic needs differ for different kinds of plants. Generally, most plants introduced to a garden have evolved to thrive under different conditions, so the home gardener needs to know what those original conditions were in order to replicate them.

For plants purchased from garden centers or nurseries, there should be information included that gives this information in terms of light and spacing needs. Seed packets will have more detailed information since more of the burden of raising the plants to maturity is on the gardener's shoulders.

Beyond that, most plants thrive best in a soil mixture that is high in organic matter. This type of soil is rich in the primary nutrients of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus that plants require as well as secondary nutrients like sulfur, calcium and magnesium. Soil highly enriched with organic matter also contains other trace elements, known as micronutrients, and has a near-neutral pH level in which most plants thrive.

Plants with similar water requirements should be grown in proximity to simplify the watering process so that one kind of plant isn't over or under watered in order to meet the needs of other nearby plants.

The bigger the garden and the wider the variety of plants grown, the more complex the balancing act to meet all of their needs is. If you're new to gardening, start small and increase the size of your garden as your knowledge and confidence grows. Creating a lovely, useful garden is a lifelong work-in-progress, which is part of the beauty of gardening.