11 Gardening Resolutions We’re Making This January
Did you miss out on growing your dream garden last year? Don’t sweat it! A new year means new growth for us and our plants. In this article, we’re going over the gardening resolutions we’re making this January to help inspire you.
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January is the perfect time for starting new habits and kicking yourself into gear. Why shouldn’t improving your gardening game be part of your New Year’s resolutions?
Maybe you missed out on growing your favorite perennials or wasted a lot of last year’s harvest. Whatever mistakes you made in 2024, it’s time to move on and do everything better in 2025.
From planting staples to attracting garden-friendly critters, you can do a lot to step up your garden game. Below are 11 gardening resolutions you can make this year and how to stick to them.
Making Our Gardens Attractive to Wildlife
One of the best garden goals for 2025 is to attract garden-friendly wildlife. We’re talking mammals, birds, and insects that can keep garden pests at bay and improve the health of your plants.
Insects such as ants and worms till the soil and provide natural compost. Bees and butterflies pollinate your plants. Animals such as birds, lizards, and even bats are incredibly helpful for ridding your garden of pests.
As beneficial as these living creatures are, many of us live in areas away from places that have abundant wildlife. The most helpful critters are often shy and avoid areas with concrete and noise pollution. However, there are several ways you can attract them to your garden.
Add More Water Features
Adding water features such as ponds, fountains, and birdbaths can do wonders for attracting wildlife. Animals get thirsty, so having an easy water source is a hassle-free way to bring them to your garden.
Bird feeders are incredibly useful and fun to build yourself. If you want a more tranquil garden space, why not build a pond? Ponds are easy to build and give animals, such as lizards, frogs, birds, and mammals, an easy water source.
Plant Native Flowers
Planting native flora is the best way to attract the birds in your region to your garden. Pollinators like hummingbirds love colorful and tubular flowers. Songbirds rely on dried seedheads of native forbs for food in winter.
As beneficial as birds are for your garden, there’s nothing better than a healthy native bee population. Bees are nature’s top pollinators and will beautify your garden. Attract them with sunflowers, marigolds, and other nectar-producing flowers. Native bees are most suited to native plantings.
Leave Some Areas Wild
Animals such as hedgehogs are nature’s best — and cutest! — forms of pest control. They eat critters such as slugs that will decimate your garden.
To invite hedgehogs, leave some spaces wild. If they have a helpful water source like a pond and places to hide, you’ll see these adorable mammals within no time.
Beautifying Our Gardens
If you’re like us, your garden is a place you spend a lot of time in. Why not turn it into a sanctuary you, your family, and friends like to hang out in?
There are several ways you can beautify your garden this year, from planting colorful flowers to adding raised garden beds. Ponds, fountains, and bird feeders not only attract helpful wildlife but also look great. Add tables, chairs, and seating areas for guests.
Of course, using plants as your centerpieces is a great strategy. If you need some extra shade for you and your shade-loving ground covers, build a trellis for grapes, passionfruit, and other vigorous vines to climb on. No matter what your aesthetic is, creating a beautiful space for your plants to grow is something to prioritize in 2025.
Growing More Staple Crops
Staple crops such as potatoes, rice, corn, and leafy greens are easy to grow and will feed you for the year. Look at which vegetables, tubers, and grains you spend the most money on. If you can grow them in your area, it’s time to grow them yourself.
This resolution goes hand in hand with saving money, another common goal for the new year. Start by making a list of you and your family’s favorite staples. Then, go to your favorite nursery or seed store and buy your seeds. You can also start with starter plants if that’s easier.
Staple crops are fun to grow with other green thumbs, friends, and neighbors. They’ll also help you cut down on grocery bills. Crops like grains and potatoes are easy to store for the next season, so you’ll have plenty of food for the winter.
Preserving Our Harvests
There’s nothing more frustrating than letting fruits and vegetables go to waste. Sure, we can add our excess crops to our compost piles, but it would be far better to preserve them. Fortunately, preserving your harvest is easy and you can start it in the new year.
Consider herbs like basil and oregano. You can blend them into sauces and freeze them or dry them and use them as spices. Are you growing sweet peppers? Try making homemade paprika.
One of the easiest and tastiest ways of preserving your harvest is pickling. With sterilized jars, spices, and brine, you can turn your cucumbers, peppers, or any other vegetable into savory snacks that will last for months or longer.
If you grow extra berries, tomatoes, or veggies, simply freeze them. When you’re ready, thaw them and enjoy!
Growing More Perrenials
Perennials come back year after year and make an exciting addition to your garden. These plants can live for years or decades, depending on the species and their health.
Unlike annuals, which you have to replant every season, perennials allow you to step back and relax. As long as you maintain them, they’ll return every year. For many plants, the older they get, the bigger their harvests.
If you’re looking to save time, money, and space, try growing more perennials this year. Below are examples of popular perennials you can grow in your garden.
| Common Name | Scientific Name |
| Artichoke | Cynara cardunculus |
| Peach | Prunus persica |
| Coreopsis | Coreopsis spp. |
| Hardy Hibiscus | Hibiscus spp. |
| Chives | Allium schoenoprasum |
Joining a Gardening Community
Gardening communities, whether they’re friends, neighbors, family members, or strangers, are super fun. They also keep us on track and are great places to give and receive feedback. If you’re looking to improve your gardening techniques in the new year like us, then joining a community is a great idea.
Start by inviting green-thumbed friends or family. Or try meeting neighbors or people in your community who share your interests. You can also look at volunteering in community or school gardens.
These groups become creative, social, and occasionally competitive. They’re also wonderful support networks for strategizing on handling pests, predicting freezes, or simply sharing recipes and harvests.
Cleaning and Organizing Tools
Our modern lives are busy and give us a lot of distractions and anxieties. To cope, we often focus on fun tasks, like creating yard designs with our flowers or cross-pollinating our favorite peppers.
This year, why not make the tedious and important tasks more fun? One of the best places to start is cleaning and organizing our tools. Clean tools prevent the spread of pests and diseases in our gardens. Having an organized gardening quiver reduces the stress of not finding things.
Start this year off right by cleaning and storing your tools thoroughly. Develop easy-to-keep habits that can become sources of relaxation and meditation. You’ll not only feel more organized, but your garden will look even better because of it.
Planting Something New
Pushing ourselves past our comfort zones is one of the best ways to go from novice to professional in any endeavor, and gardening is no exception. Have you ever wanted to grow orchids or try cultivatig edible mushrooms? Make 2025 the year you push your horticultural skills to new levels!
Make a list of edible or ornamental plants that grow in your region. Or write down the houseplant varieties you’d love to try. Reach out to friends or your gardening community for ideas and advice.
Set aside a space for experimenting! Give yourself permission to make mistakes and use this year to learn as much as possible. When 2026 rolls around, you’ll have even more experience as a gardener. You’ll also be ready to push your boundaries once again.
Learning Old-School Gardening Methods
Sure, technology is great for improving our yields and helping us stay organized. But there’s something special about getting back to the basics and learning the ancient methods of gardening.
Over the last 10,000 years or longer, humans have made ingenious advances in garden technology. These methods let our ancestors solve environmental challenges and produce food from unexpected sources. What’s even more impressive is how much these methods still work!
This year, take a break from the data and screens and learn a few ancient gardening techniques. Methods such as irrigating with olla pots and using hügelkultur beds for soil are highly effective, sustainable, and fun.
Improving Soil Health
Soil health is fundamental for a healthy garden. As responsible gardeners, we’re always trying to improve our soil quality. If you’re a newbie gardener looking for a New Year’s resolution, this would be a great place to start.
Start by planting cover crops and enriching your soil if it’s made of sand or clay. If you live in an area with deciduous trees, use their fallen leaves to cover your topsoil. This encourages worms and microbes to flourish by protecting them from predators and trapping in moisture.
If you haven’t already, start making compost at home. It’s easy, free, and adds a bounty of nutrients like nitrogen and carbon to your soil. Add food scraps, brown leaves, and grass trimmings, and turn it regularly. You’ll soon have an endless supply of plant food.
Talking to Our Plants
Sure, our neighbors, families, and friends might think we’re strange, but that’s ok. Regardless of any pseudoscience, talking to our plants is just another way to feel more connected to them. By taking the time to get to know each one, we’re more in tune with their needs and behaviors.
For 2025, try spending more time with each plant. Get to know its traits and personality. You’ll notice details like which parts of your garden are more productive or which plants complement each other the most. You’ll even catch garden-killing diseases and pests before they become problems.
We’re not saying you have to have conversations with them. But spending more one-on-one time with your plants this year may improve your skills as a gardener.
