A new year is simply the turn of a calendar page — and a beautiful chance for us to turn over a new leaf.

It is customary in Australia to ring in the New Year with the excitement of fireworks, parties, friends, and champagne and the good intentions of new year resolutions. I have always enjoyed New Year’s Eve, and since early childhood, I’ve been able to celebrate the coming year at a party. My first memories of New Years Eve parties were an annual overnight gig at a beautiful home on the Hawkesbury River with my parents and brothers. We stayed up all night, watched the adults have too much fun, sang Auld Lang Syne at midnight, swam in the pool packed with floating balloons and tucked into a hot barbeque breakfast in the morning for brunch. Heady stuff for a ten-year-old has remained the standard of my idea of New Year’s Eve ever since.

So whether its a party in a home, in a city bar or restaurant, on a boat or a tiny balcony overlooking the harbour. New Year’s Eve is the best night of the year. I love extending the festive season into the new year and the promise of a clean slate dawning on January the 1st.

Unfortunately, I have never been very adept at New Year Resolutions, but this year I’m going to nail it probably for the first time. Well, I have clear and strong intentions anyway. Unlike the traditional New Year resolutions around lifestyle changes such as limiting alcohol intake, weight loss, fitness or becoming a vegan, my resolutions for 2020 are about the garden.

Hope and faith flower from the cheerful seeds of the old year to the sprouting garden of the new year’s dawn.
Terri Guillemets

New Year Resolutions for Gardeners

One of the best New Year’s Resolutions is to start a new garden or to improve certain aspects of your existing garden or gardening habits. There are many simple and easy garden practises that once established will make a difference in growing a flourishing garden. Perhaps look at more sustainable gardening or choose from some of these ideas as your New Year resolutions for an outstanding garden through 20120.

If you don’t have a garden decide to start one as even in apartment living you can grow herbs, flowers and vegetables on balconies and porches quite easily.
Design your garden to suit the location that is easy to maintain and more sustainable
Build a compost heap
Plant fruit trees
Decide to go 100% organic
Set up a worm farm

Plant more native plants
Test the soil ph and learn to look after your soil and use your own composting
Fertilise with manure
Plant trees to help store carbon from the atmosphere into the soil
Clean out the shed and find the right place to store all your gardening tools and equipment.
Water well and thoroughly but less often so the plants become hardy.

Set up garden pots on a drip watering system
Grow more edible greens like lettuces, kale, rocket, sorrel and endive
Weed regularly
Keep learning by reading, asking advice, researching and joining gardening groups or online communities
Mulch often to keep the soil cool and suppress weeds
Try new varieties of plants in the garden

Secure all the climbing plants
Visit local or interstate inspiring gardens
Try growing new plants from seeds
Propagate spare plants ready for fairs and markets
Put up shade sails for plant protection in the heat of Summer
Use beneficial insects to get rid of pests

Add seaweed to the garden either fresh from the ocean and dried out to be pulverised or use Eco seaweed style products
Clean and sharpen gardening tools
Be creative with your choice of plants and design the garden with focus on colour, texture, contrast and repetition for a balanced garden look
Grow companion plants under roses for insect control and weed suppression
Go for ‘less is more’ in the vegetable garden by growing better quality rather than huge quantities of produce.

Label the names of your roses
Keep a gardening journal
Share your vegetable surplus with neighbours
Play music to your plants as research shows they like it and the louder the better
Grow more indoor houseplants
Relax in your garden and enjoy the fruits of your labour

The rose of the old year withers away as the new bud begins to bloom.

With so many resolutions to choose from the garden calendar will be very full this year. The last three New Year resolutions are my favourite ones to adopt this coming year. These are very simple yet effective habits that will make a difference to my time in the garden, lessening extra tasks and making me go the extra distance. Let’s see how I go!