How a Homeowner Can Use a Garden Journal

After reading a review of a gardener’s journal, I came across a description of how one resourceful homeowner had put her garden journal to good use in an innovative way.

It could be one way that a seller would gain a bit of advantage in a tough housing market.

It is a well known piece of advice that sprucing up the landscape adds a great deal of value to your home, and is an important part of the “curb appeal” for new buyers, but how many people think about helping out the the new owners after the sale?

How many people (unless they are avid gardeners to begin with) think about taking care of that landscape that attracted them to the house they now own?

A woman who used her garden journal to benefit the new owners, did just that.

How Do Home Owners Benefit From a Garden Journal?

She had lived in her residence for more than a couple decades, and during that time had kept a journal recording her newly planted shrubs and trees. Details like what she planted, when she planted it, and where it was planted (using a garden layout plan) were all kept in her garden journal.

All she needed to do was make a copy of this invaluable information for the new owner.

Who wouldn’t love having a record like that from the former owners?

I know that the tried and true garden advice for a new homeowner is to live a year at your place before making big changes to the landscape, and part of that is discovering the interesting and valuable plants that are already in your garden.

It would help considerably to have all that first hand knowledge written down and ready to incorporate into the future planning of a new garden.

‘Easy Peasy’ Vegetable Gardening Diary

There are lots of reasons to make a hard copy (or even a digital) garden journal. Now I found one more.

Some products that could function as your own home landscaping record:

A Few Ideas For Garden Journaling From Amazon

• A Gardener’s Journal: Complete Form Set – use your own Notebook
• The New Three-Year Garden Journal: With Regional Gardening Guides
• Smithsonian A Gardener’s Calendar and Journal
• Artful Journals: Making & Embellishing Memory Books, Garden Diaries & Travel Albums

(this last book is about making journals, in case you need inspiration)

I came across something else that could be useful within a home garden journal or as something separate. While perusing some photos online, on the Flickr site, I saw the photo of someones garden, and they had used a simple photo editing program to label the plantings. That is almost too obvious an idea, and I have occasionally done that with some of my photos, but never thought of it as an idea to use should I ever sell the house. Think of all those bulbs planted… and no idea of what is where! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a simple photo, with labels added, to help keep track of what was planted, oh, back in ’98? Sometimes it is the inventive combining of things we do ordinarily which result in an extraordinary benefit.

An example of a beautiful garden diary is pictured at the beginning of the post. Jane, of Easy Peasy Vegetable Gardening  created a very pretty one for her vegetable plot. If something similar would record the landscape plants and bulbs – that would help give the next garden owner a chance to learn about the wonderful things you put into your garden.

Just take a digital photo, label in a photo editing program, and then print out and paste inside your garden journal. Then you are all ready to record some planting notes- voila! The garden plan ready for posterity.

Example List of Information To Include

• Soil Analysis
• Garden Layout
• Monthly Task Calender
• Plant Lists

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© 2010 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal. Copyrights apply.