How To Set New Year’s Garden Goals

The new year is a great time for gardeners to review the past growing season, create new gardening goals, and plan for success. Not only is this process incredibly useful, but it also generates gardening excitement and helps combat the winter blues.

REVIEW

Review the past growing season, using notes, photos, etc., to create an outline. What worked in your garden this past year? What didn’t work? Don’t worry about the details at this point. For brand new gardeners, think about what you’d like from the garden as well as some challenges you might face and list those.

Here’s an excerpt from my own review of the 2021 growing season:

What worked

• Moving the swing to a new area

• Free mulch

What didn’t work

• Backyard Irrigation

• The pumpkins/squash bed

Use the information from the review to think about the garden’s design, layout, hardscaping, and infrastructure. What would you like to have added, removed, or reworked?

For demonstration purposes, I’ll choose one from my review to create a goal for the upcoming year: Moving the swing to a new area. The swing was not in an ideal spot originally, so we chose a place to put it “for now”. It turns out that we used it more often in the new location and enjoyed sitting there. I would like to have this area reworked as a proper garden seating area.

SET GOALS

One of the most common goal-setting methods is the SMART method. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, and each goal should have those elements.

Define garden goals based on the review session and using the SMART method. For the S of SMART (specific) portion of your goal, it can be helpful to ask why, where, when, how, and which, although you don’t need to answer each question at this point.

For my example, I defined each part of SMART as it relates to how I envision the spruced-up swing seating area. Then, I combined it all into a two-sentence goal.

1. Specific: Create a cozy, enjoyable space around the new seating area.

2. Measurable: Plant a minimum of 6 part-shade tolerant plants, providing scent and movement as well as partially screening the area.

3. Achievable: Setting the minimum number of plants low keeps it achievable for me.

4. Relevant: Last season, this new space was used as a reading, relaxation, and conversation area. Sprucing it up will make it even more enjoyable.

5. Time-bound: The 2022 growing season.

MY SMART GOAL: During the 2022 growing season, create a cozy, enjoyable space around the new seating area. Plant a minimum of 8 part-shade plants, providing scent, movement, and partial screening of the area for more enjoyment.

PLAN

In addition to setting garden goals, it’s important to plan out their execution. As the growing season picks up, a gardener’s attention is diverted to other tasks and there may not be time to plan on the fly. Having a plan in place for accomplishing your garden goals means greater success.

Divide goals into actionable tasks. Add details like cost, time involved, and effort needed.

In my example, a good starting point would be to design a plan for the new seating area. For me, this will be a quick sketch in my garden journal showing the layout and plant types. Questions to ask include:

• Will I start from seed or buy plants from the garden center in the spring?

• Should I plant in the ground, in containers, or a combination of both?

• How should the irrigation system be adjusted to include the new planting?

• What accessories could I add, such as a side table or a fun sculpture?

Arrange tasks by month and/or week for an overall view of how to complete the goals.

For example, once I have my plant list I can calculate when to start seeds and add that task to my calendar. Doing this makes it less likely that I’ll miss the opportunity to get started.

CONCLUSION

Setting garden goals and planning takes time but it is well worth the effort. To be fair, I’ve had many garden goals that were simply in my head and not meticulously planned out as I’ve shown above. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. There have been times that I’ve had to do double the work or spend more money because of a lack of planning. I’m determined not to let that happen this year.

As with anything in the garden, be flexible and enjoy the process.

Happy New Year!