Costa Farms
- Whether you're maintaining a single planter box on a balcony or your seeding a multi-row garden in your back yard, gardening can be a satisfying, rewarding hobby resulting in beautiful flowers and tasty foods. You just have to choose the right plants for the climate, the season, and for your location.
- The Kimberly Fern is our top pick because it will grow just about anywhere, from a pot in the corner of the office to a hanging planter to soil in the ground.
Gardening can be a challenge, but it's also a rewarding hobby that can beautify your home and yield a bounty of nutritious foods. If you're a beginner, however, you'll need to accept that the first garden you plant may not be worthy of a Better Homes and Gardens cover, but keep in mind that your gardening skills will advance year after year, allowing you to grow ever more vibrant flowers, hardy shrubs, and tasty vegetables.
Before you consider what plants to grow, think about where your garden will be situated. If you have an acre of land that gets great sunshine and plenty of rain, then you can plant as large or as small a garden as you want and you can grow all sorts of different plants. If you have only a few square feet of space on a balcony or patio and the area is usually shaded, you still have options, but they will be limited.
As for when you should start planting, that depends on where you live. The Old Farmer's Almanac suggests sowing seeds indoors six to eight weeks before the last spring frost. The Urban Farmer lists the different planting schedules based on zones.
A rather handy home gardener myself (after years of struggle, of course), I've put together a list of great plants for a first garden that includes options ideal for full sun, shade, in-ground planting, and planter or pot planting, and we've included food plants along with decorative flora. It's up to you to turn the earth and dig the holes, set up your irrigation system, check soil pH, and provide fertilizer and water as needed. But if you do all of that for one of these easy-to-grow plants, you'll soon be enjoying your new hobby.
Here are the best plants you can buy for your first garden:
Keep scrolling to read more about our top picks.
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