That first full day in the garden may find you tired, sunburned and stiff. Whether you are a young or young-at-heart gardener, include some strategies to help extend your enjoyment and reduce fatigue and muscle strain so you can keep gardening longer each day and for years to come. No matter your age, it’s important to protect your joints when gardening. Use a kneeler pad or knee pads to protect your knees.

Fresh on your pizza, added to your favorite Italian and Southeastern Asian dishes or made into pesto, it’s not surprising basil is often called the king of herbs. Look for opportunities to include basil in gardens, containers and ornamental plantings. Purple varieties add color and combine nicely with other flowers and vegetables.

Dahlias come in various colors, shapes and sizes, making them easy to include in any garden, container or bouquet. Grow them in their own dedicated space, mix them with other flowers or plant a few at the end of the vegetable garden. Consider including different varieties of dahlias for added interest and beauty in the garden and your arrangements. Select colors that you imagine will look great together in a vase.

Each gardening season seems to offer new growing challenges. Our gardens are exposed to more drastic and variable weather with changing weather patterns. Floods, droughts, wind, temperature extremes and unseasonable weather episodes can have immediate and long-term impacts on our plants. Monitoring and noting these occurrences will help you diagnose immediate and future plant and garden problems.

Now is the time when many of us are busy ordering seeds. We often end up with many seeds, some new ones we needed or wanted and perhaps a few duplicates of those we have left from past seasons. It is easy to overlook some of these as the indoor and outdoor planting season begins. Save money by taking inventory of your current seed collection, reducing the risk of ordering seeds you don’t need.

Kick off 2025 with the addition of a monstera plant to your indoor garden. You’ll join other gardeners observing 2025 as the Year of the Monstera. Each year, the National Garden Bureau (NGB) selects and celebrates one plant in each of the following categories: annual, perennial, bulb, edible and shrub.