Micro goals for sustainable spring gardening

Plus, a peek at my extremely underdeveloped shared city garden.

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It feels like spring–real spring. Not only have the temperatures hit the mid 60s in New York City this week, but we’ve sprung forward an hour and the light has a summer-y quality to it. Everywhere you look something is in bloom: Crocuses, hellebore, daffodils. Ignoring the fact that it’s awfully early to be so warm, all this balmy weather and blossoming has me in a gardening frame of mind. 

The last two years have awakened my interest in plants and landscapes, and especially gardens as a meaningful climate solution. I’ve devoted myself to becoming an able garden writer and have read as much as I could about the topic, but I have a confession: I, myself, haven’t become a real gardener—yet. (More on what’s holding me back below.) 

My fantasy of what my city garden could look like—lush, immersive, wild, and beautiful—designed by Colm Joseph Gardens. 

I have big dreams about gardening, but I am trying to keep my ambitions realistic. Here in the city, my “garden” is a courtyard shared by more than a hundred apartments, so it’s not really, ahem, “mine,” but I do lay claim to the patch immediately outside my window. I got a little help with some ideas for the space from

Heather Evans

from Avant Gardener, who shared suggestions for what I could plant in her newsletter a couple weeks back (thank you, Heather!). I loved Heather’s picks of plant wild geranium (Geranium maculatum), eastern bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana), lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina), white wood aster (Eurybia divaricata), wild petunia (Ruellia humilis), tall thimbleweed (Anenome virginiana) and Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), and I already planted some blueberry bushes around it late last fall.

I’m tempering my own ambitions, in part, because it feels like I have no time to garden at this mid-career stage of life, in the thick of hands-on parenting, but also because small goals have a much greater tendency to actually get accomplished.

I’ve written up a list of micro garden goals for anyone interested in more sustainable gardening practices. There are ideas for newbies like me and others that will apply to even the seasoned pros who have been gardening for decades. I’m also sharing a few photos I took of my shared city garden, so you can see where I’ll apply these lessons. You’ll see that I’m not starting with anything very inspiring…