Buzz
Your phone and social media often show you memories from years past, highlighting changes and growth, like how your children have matured. These snapshots can also provide valuable insights into your garden's history, such as when tulips bloomed, peonies flourished, or grass withered.
Although keeping a garden journal is popular, written notes lack the impact of photographs. For those with ADHD, maintaining a written log can be challenging, but capturing images is simpler and often something you’re already doing regularly.
Steps to Create a Visual Diary for Your Garden
You’re probably already capturing the highlights for social media—flowers in full bloom, vibrant foliage, and the neat stripes left by the lawnmower. (If not, let’s discuss the wonders of #gardentok.)
For a broader perspective, identify a few key locations on your property that are easy to recognize—such as under a streetlight or beside a tree—where you can repeatedly take photos. Set a monthly reminder on Google to capture images from these spots on the same day each month. This approach will provide a comprehensive view of your yard, allowing you to track its transformation throughout the seasons.
Don’t forget to document the less glamorous aspects too. Stroll through your garden, observe areas needing improvement, and take photos. (You’ll forget these details once the tulips fade in autumn.) Notice a bare patch in a flower bed? Capture it. Is the grass thinning in one spot? Record it. Is a trellis misaligned? Does the pathway need expansion? Document it all.
Next, consider tagging your photos, which might involve an additional step. Google excels at auto-tagging, enabling you to search for terms like “tulip” or “garden” without manual tagging and still find relevant results. However, you can use the quieter winter months to organize these photos into albums or add more detailed labels.
Once your diary is up and running, here are some ways to maximize its use:
Extend the colorful season of your garden
Many gardeners concentrate on summer blooms: peonies, followed by irises, then echinacea, and finally zinnias. To stretch this vibrant display before and after the peak season, consult your diary to identify what bloomed in March and September, and where. I noticed my late-season flowers (crythanthemums and scabiosa) and plan to increase their numbers next year. I also tracked when the first flowers (tulips and daffodils) emerged annually, helping me decide what could bloom even earlier to add more color to my yard. (While evergreen shrubs may not seem exciting during a May impulse buy, photos of your bare garden in January can serve as a valuable reminder.)
Additionally, observing how colors evolve throughout the season allows me to rearrange plants and pair them to craft better color narratives and vary textures through height. The automatic date stamps on photos help me determine which plants will bloom simultaneously.
Identify the empty areas
While exploring the garden, I frequently observe empty spaces that would benefit from a few bulbs or additional plants. By the time bulb-planting season arrives, I’ve forgotten their locations, as tulips have already been replaced by later-blooming varieties. The visual diary serves as a guide, helping me locate these gaps during specific seasons.
Occasionally, plants struggle but not enough to warrant immediate removal. Reviewing the visual diary reminds me which plants need extra attention and monitoring. If they don’t improve, I’ll know to replace them rather than let them struggle for another year.
Monitor erosion, water pooling, and wear over time
Gardens change gradually, much like the proverbial frog in boiling water, making it easy to overlook subtle shifts. A photo of my pristine, weed-free lawn from a decade ago was a stark reminder of how much had changed, prompting me to compost and reseed.
Likewise, addressing water drainage issues on the back patio in winter is impractical, but by summer, I’d forget where the water tends to collect. Photos provide the clarity needed to address these problems effectively.
Lastly, having a photographic record of your garden can be invaluable for insurance purposes, providing evidence if you ever need to file a claim.
