How to stop gardening fails knock your gardening confidence?

[R0ckl0bster]

I tend to take gardening fails personally and it really knocks my gardening confidence - things like battling with weeds, plant death, slug damage, the endless jobs I never seem to get on top of etc

I know its part and parcel of gardening and all worth it but how do you stop negativity creeping in? I’d like to be one of those gardeners that takes it all in their stride. 😊

I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen those sorts of things as ‘fails’, just nature doing its thing. A healthy garden will have weeds and slugs!

Decide that yours is a wildlife garden, there for the creatures - the insects, birds etc. They make use of weeds, dead things, 'failures' as it's just nature.

Never expect to finish all the jobs. That's the fun of a garden - seeing what it's got for you today.

It's not a fail, it's a learning experience. You get to know what works and what doesn't in your own space.

Nature is clever, don't overthink gardening. I see it as an outside gym, I get air, sun, exercise and occasionally outwit mother nature. I definitely don't have a perfect garden, but it does make me feel a sense of accomplishment when a plant does good 😊. A bit like chess, I know how to move the pieces just not how to really play, my gardens like that, but I like a challenge.

I've been gardening since the mid 80s and I still get failures or disappointments with plants and aspects of gardening including wildlife.

You never stop learning I've found.

I have the 'if it lives that's great and if it dies I plant something else' attitude. Weeding is never ending because they arrive from everywhere so I just weed until I'm bored then do more another day. This year I haven't seen any slugs - I'm pretty sure the crow, jackdaws and magpies are eating them! My garden is full of bugs and birds which eat them. It'll never be featured on Gardeners World but I love my 'I wonder if this will work' garden.

I think of gardening as housework, it's never all going to be done at once and it's a case of progress over perfection. Also it's supposed to be fun, so if I'm not enjoying it one year, I'll just mulch the borders and do the minimum to keep things ticking over.

This is the first year in a while that I've sown seeds indoors, as I had a really bad year a while back where I lost a lot of established plants over a bad winter. I've bought a load of hopefully easy to grow scatter seeds like poppies, calendula, forget me nots, foxgloves to hopefully bulk out the borders and suppress the weeds. My thinking is if nothing grows I won't feel like I've wasted lots of money, as I would do if I'd bought lots of established plants.

I usually blame something else - the weather, the soil etc. That helps. Also I’ve just got an allotment and some of the old timers were talking about last year being a really bad growing year and I realised everybody, even the people who totally know what they’re doing, have fails.

Most importantly to me is I remind myself (and dh) that it’s a hobby and all hobbies have wins and losses. I wouldn’t demand that he stop spending his money on a season ticket every time Newcastle don’t win something, I don’t stop my kids from playing on the switch each time they lose a game so as far as I’m concerned gardening is no different. I get enjoyment out of it while I’m doing it and if the stuff I plant survives too then great but if it doesn’t then so what!

You'd have to have a megalomaniac to think that you could command and Mother Nature would obey.
In gardening, you can only do your best and hope that some of it turns out as you wished. Then you do exactly the same thing next year ... and it fails miserably!
But fook is onto something: if it was failsafe then it wouldn't be interesting.

Following for encouragement 🤷🏻‍♀️

Of course you get upset when a plant dies on you, but then you become quite elated when you see a flower budding. The ups and downs (often on the same first walk around the garden) are the adventure - I couldn’t be one of those shrug shoulders type about my garden because I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t love it - I’d do the bare minimum and I wouldn’t care, what lived or died and I’d find something else to do.

For me it’s having a small garden.
If stuff fails it’s easy enough to replace. It’s also easy to change stuff round and alter whole the look .
My white garden looked horrible for two years so back to brights this year. Only took a few plants I already had plopped into my tiny border.

I don’t think it will ever look as effortlessly impressive as a big garden but it’s quick to sort out things that don’t work.

what grows one year might not grow the next. This year lots of my bulbs didnt come up but the clematis which is usually awful is magnificent
i have a border full of bindweed and ground elder that never goes
try growing less varieties work out what loves your garden best and grow lots of that
I find foxgloves roses tulips knautica circium scabious centaurs Montana lavender in sandy dry borders nepeta cat mint and cosmos are pretty failsafe in mine

I’m pretty sure that ‘effortlessly impressive big gardens’ are an illusion created by a considerable amount of work!

There is no such thing as an effortlessly impressive garden and certainly not if it is a big one at that!

It has been a surprise to me that since I now only have a rooftop garden I am enjoying it immensely, probably much more so than any other. The joys are still tremendous and the losses not so catastrophic! I can now focus on things I never had time to before.
I hope you will gradually be able to focus on the positives, OP. Gardens take time to establish and fails are just part of the learning process.

Also remember that you don't really ever have or own a garden. It is a living being/ entity unto itself! ;)

Being an abject failure helped. I came into gardening without knowing a thing. I had a paved garden for years and didn't attempt to grow anything other than a couple of flowers in pots.
Eventually I moved to a house with a good garden, so I decided to give it a go. One year I couldn't even get tomatoes to grow. I haven't ever gotten courgettes to grow successfully after trying 2 years in a row-- I refuse to kill snails and the courgette didn't get past flower stage for a range of reasons.

I finally managed to get cucamelons (bought as tiny saplings in a garden centre) to grow and fruit! My tomatoes were successful!

But for every plant I grow there are about 4 others that didn't see the light of day.

I just count my successes. I know I give it only half of what little time I have available, and I have learned a thousand and one lessons in the years that I attempted to grow anything, and there are things that fruit and flower without too much effort the hazel tree in my garden, the mint and thyme and (now) tomatoes, blackberries all of these give me a lot of hope that things will be better.

Finally, about 3 years in I am confident I can grow potatoes and tomatoes, and I know enough (from watching countless hours of gardening youtube) about what the zone, temperature and nutrition for your plants and how planning your plants can help you achieve more success,

TL;DR focus on what works. Plant easy things, plan your garden well, and take it slow.

You can avoid weeding by planting densely. I agree with PP about changing your attitude,nothing is a fail in the garden ,it's just nature doing it's thing.

You need to decide what you are happy to live with, no go by what other people are happy to live with.

Are you a little and often, or a big and seldom gardener?

For example, some people love keeping plants in pots, they don't mind doing a little daily watering, they consider containers low maintenance, a frequent but easy task. Their idea of high maintenance is pruning and weeding.

I fucking hate daily watering, I consider that a high maintenance daily chore. I forget and they all die so the money I spent is wasted. So I don't keep plants in containers, or if I do they are succulents that don't need watering. I like shrubs I can plant and just leave to get on with it, maybe once a year they get a mulch and a prune if they are getting too big. That is my idea of low maintenance, a couple of days hard work per year, a high effort but low frequency task.

Same with slugs, some people don't mind going out with a torch and picking them off every evening. For me, I prefer to plant things that don't get eaten by slugs, or are vigorous growers that may occasionally get out of hand and chopping back a couple of times a year.

To be a happy gardener, work out what you prefer and plant accordingly 😁

It's the slugs that are the issue to me- so disheartening! I want to grow green veg and it just doesn't seem possible without resorting to slug pellets, which I won't do anymore.
If anyone has any tips that might work so that I could grow lettuce, cabbage or any variety of greens it would make me so happy!
I'm happy to take a view with flowers, and I do choose plants that will grow happily in our north facing shady garden.

I wouldnt put slug pellets anywhere near food plants @DelphiniumBlue grow slug proof veg instead..

https://www.gardensillustrated.com/plants/slug-proof-vegetables

Accept iris a cyclical process

It suddenly clicked for me one time watching Monty who had an issue with a hosta and another time he’s moving stuff because it’s not in the right spot - well if he can get it wrong a v experienced garden then it’s ok for me to - I’m a beginner

Take lots of pics of your successes

I like this

I know that amongst the weeds, leaf litter and debris is a thriving community of insects which provide sustenance for the birds, frogs and plants. It’s not really healthy to have a very neat garden.

I think - ooh! room for something new! I've got good at selling or giving away plants that aren't working. And also picking up from FB local groups new plants to try. I'm happy to move things too.

Also - a neat weeded garden isn't good for wildlife. Also - slugs and pigeons are allowed to eat too....

@DelphiniumBlue go out at dusk or a bit later with a torch and pick the little blighters off the plants - it makes a huge difference. Also encourage blackbirds and other birds.