Gardening is a skill just like any other and, like all other skills, must be carefully cultivated – no pun intended. It must be practised constantly in order to be honed to perfection but unlike many other skills, the learning curve never ends. In fact, gardening requires constant learning and re-learning of old techniques now forgotten and new techniques learnt yesterday. The mark of a good gardener is the ability to grow and protect all living things, not just the trees.If you are a city slicker by birth and haven’t rooted around in the dirt a lot, here are some ways you can be a gardener:

Jump In and Join

There’s nothing like actually jumping in and figuring things out from there to teach you all the lessons you need to know. If you don’t want to lose money on your first try out, buy some cheap plants at Melbourne and plant them in your garden or flower beds. For your first try simply dig some holes and place each shrub or tree in it before covering it up again without the initial bag or basket. Your seedlings will survive depending on how hardy they are. If none of them grow, try changing the type of soil or the place where you’ve planted them the first time round.

Read Up on the Matter

You can also go the academic route and read up on all things agricultural (such as the fact that camellia sasanqua was cultivated in Japan for its functional use). This is a great way to gain all the theoretical knowledge you need to be a gardener, especially if you are starting late and have to catch up to the other gardeners. However, studying will only give you theoretical knowledge; it will not teach you practically how to garden and how each thing has a set time, place and a rule. It will not teach you about the problems you run into nor teach you how to solve it on your own. It’s always better to gain practical knowledge but in the event that you don’t yet have the opportunity to practice, you can read a book too.

Assist Your Neighbours

You must have at least one neighbour who loves gardening and won’t mind someone who has genuine interest poking around. Ask politely whether you can help out and learn a few tricks of the trade along the way. A more experienced gardener will have a wealth of wisdom to share if only you can tap into it. So be patient, do the drudgery and remember to keep your eyes and ears open to catch any morsel of info you get. In order to reinforce everything, keep referring back to what you saw and repeat the process at home as well.