10 Handy Gardening Tips for Busy People

Love to garden but short on time? Here are some tips that will help you plant, water and weed more efficiently.

If you love gardening but your life is a busy place, you’re going to love this batch of great gardening tips that will help you plant, weed and water your garden more quickly. From bringing plants home from the nursery to easier watering and pruning techniques, these tips will help you plant and maintain a gorgeous garden with less effort. Less weeding and more relaxing…now that’s great gardening!

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spraying shovel with pam

No-Stick Shovel

Whether you’re dealing with wet snow or mucky soil, a dose of spray lubricant on your shovel or garden spade will make the sticky stuff slip right off. Use a lubricant that contains silicone or Teflon and recoat the shovel occasionally.

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Family Handyman

Protect Bulbs from Pests

Keep hungry critters from snacking on your freshly planted flower bulbs by staking poultry netting over the bed. You can either remove the cloth in the early spring or let plants grow through the holes and leave it throughout the growing season.

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planting pot
Family Handyman

Prevent Invasive Plants

Push this “collar” into the soil (or drive it down with a mallet) to encircle the plant and its invasive root system. If the soil has become compacted, cut around the plant with a spade first. Note: This technique won’t contain plants that spread above ground like strawberries and mint.

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Portable Potting Shelf

Portable Potting Shelf

Cut a piece of plywood roughly to the shape of your wheelbarrow’s back end and screw a few wood cleats along the sides to keep it from slipping off while you wheel. Now you’ll have both soil and a potting surface right at hand when you take the wheelbarrow to the garden.

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Plant Scrapbook

Plant Portfolio

Store plant tags and sticks inside a cheap photo album. You can add details such as when and where the plants were purchased, special care or even the plant’s location on a sketch of your yard.

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Removing rootbound evergreen tree from pot
Andrii Zastrozhnov/Shutterstock

Slice Root Balls and Tease Out Roots

If you buy potted plants or shrubs, they may well be root-bound. With nowhere else to grow, roots form tight circles inside the pot. As the plant grows, the tightly wound roots prevent water and nutrients from reaching the leaves. Before planting, gently coax these roots outward with your fingers. If the roots are very stubborn, make three or four vertical cuts in the root-ball with a sharp knife. Once planted, water often to help the plant get established.

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Pool Noodle Planter Hack Via @PennyJo8 TikTok
Via @PennyJo8/TikTok

Make Heavy Pots Lighter

To lighten large pots, we found this TikTok hack where you stuff the bottom of the pot with pool noodles. They not only make the pot lighter but also provide space for drainage. Fit a round piece of landscape fabric between the soil and the foam to keep the materials separate. You can use a light potting mix that contains plenty of vermiculite and peat moss to make the pot even lighter.

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Close-Up Of Pink Roses
Wei Gao Yóu Jia/Getty Images

Prune Roses in the Center to Get More Sun

A rule of thumb for all roses, no matter where you live: Pruning to keep the center open lets the sunshine in and keeps out black spot and other such blights that love cool, moist, shady places.

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Rain Gauge

Easy-to-Read Rain Gauge

Drip food coloring into the bottom of your rain gauge the next time you empty it out. When it showers, the coloring will reconstitute and tint the water to make the gauge easier to read.

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Plant Transport

Potted Plant Transporter

The spaces between the rungs of a stepladder are great spots to transport tender plants. No more messy spills during turns!

Ryan Van Bibber
Ryan Van Bibber, the executive editor for Family Handyman, is a career journalist with more than two decades of experience in the industry. He's been DIY'ing since he was a kid, learning from his father who was a carpenter and general contractor. Ryan has a natural curiousity to learn how things work and how to make them work better. That spirit has guided his career his own DIY journey as a homeowner. He specializes in the areas of painting, sustainability, and basic home maintenance. Through his career, Ryan covered the NFL for more than a decade, edited award-winning features, worked as a senior editor at Outside magazine as well as writing and editing buying guides and product reviews for national publications.