While we think no outdoor space is complete without a comfortable chair or poppy umbrella, our flowering friends also play a huge part in making our favorite outdoor spaces so inviting. We’ve compiled a list of gardening tips and tricks to help master gardeners and first-time plant parents alike. Read on for your seasonal education in all things jardin. 

Japanese gardens are minimalist by design. Lush tsukiyama gardens feature artificial hills and bodies of water; hira-niwa (“level ground”) gardens compensate for their flat terrain with plants of multiple heights and depths. Irises, azaleas, and evergreen trees are the common plants in these types of gardens. Karesansui gardens—often called zen gardens here in the West—are dominated by stones, gravel, or sand. 

Kitchen gardens are less about flowers and more about food. (This doesn’t mean they can’t be beautiful, though!) They tend to be hyper-individualized; what grows in them depends on what the gardener or the chef wants to use. Common plants include aromatic herbs such as rosemary and mint and vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, and carrots.

Get in the Zone

There are a few rules in gardening, but none of them more important or helpful than the rules of nature. Climate and soil composition dictate what sort of plants can be grown where. The United States Department of Agriculture has a handy map that can help you understand your own climate a little better. Known as the USDA Hardiness Zone Chart, this map divides the country into 13 regions, with most of the lower 48 states falling into zones 2 through 10. Plants bought from a nursery will often have labels saying where they best live. For example, a zone 2 plant might have trouble surviving in zone 9. Always check the label before buying. Luckily, most commercially sold plants have a breadth of zones where they can survive.

 Grand Gardens

The first and most important step in creating your garden is deciding which type of garden you want to have. “Establish areas for each use before you start thinking about plants,” says Lauren Dunec Hoang, a garden designer who frequently writes about gardening trends for magazines including Better Homes & Gardens. After you decide what sort of garden you want, consider plants. Beyond looking up your USDA Plant Hardiness Zone, “check out a couple of books from the library,” Lauren says. “Speak to a local landscape designer or someone at your local nursery.” You can also take walks in nature to see what sort of flora thrives locally.

If you want to do good by the planet, consider climate-sensitive gardening. “Think of your garden as a small part of a much larger environment. The decisions we make, including which plants and material to include and how we nurture the soil, all contribute to the garden’s overall environmental footprint,” Lauren says. She suggests choosing plants that are native and don’t require constant irrigation for them to flourish. “Approaching garden design this way is really a win-win. Gardens that are designed with a sensitivity for natural landscape often have a stronger sense of place.” You can also green your garden by avoiding harmful chemicals in fertilizers, trying your hand at companion planting, and being vigilant against pests.

“Include evergreen plants for year-round structure, small-scale trees, and flowering shrubs for height in the back and midsection of a border, and then add layers of perennials and ground covers to fill in the foreground,” Lauren suggests. “Unless you have a single specimen plant you’d like to show off, always plant in groups of three or five.” Then again, “swaths of massed plants can also have a lovely effect, such as a sweep of meadowlike grasses or a mass of ferns beneath trees.”