Learn, every day! Pick up skills such as new plant propagation, how to prune, tips on how to plant.
As handy as the toolshed out back, it pays to keep track of where you find your most helpful garden information.
….
Ways To Track Garden Information
Online, stored info can be organized anywhere you like to store and organize bookmarks.
During the past few years I have used the Evernote app.
While there are online sites that give you space to compile your information, a personal garden journal is invaluable for many. It can even become a welcome gift to the new owner, should you sell your property.
A Library of Gardening Books
I appreciate the hardcover type of garden information, too- and regularly use garden resource books to help decide which plants to plant… or (more likely) where to put a new plant I just couldn’t resist from the plant store!
Recently, The Garden Librarian was begun to offer just such reviews of worthwhile garden books. Many selections are included in the GardenShop bookshelf, especially the ones I loved to consult from my library.
The local public library has been a source of discovery- there are so many garden books that it would be difficult (were it not for the community library!) to explore all the ones available. Garden books vary widely in quality and in focus, so it is real help to read reviews and to get a first hand look from the library shelf.
Plant Science Facts
Basic Skills: How-To
Plant a tree | Dig the hole the right way | Improve the soil
…More of this topic. Gardening How-To
Learn From An Expert
Apprenticing is just as important, and perhaps the best way to accumulate garden know-how. If you didn’t have a mom or grandfather who gardened, maybe you have a neighbor whose landscape abilities you admire. There are garden clubs, courses, and master gardener programs! Even garden shows hold a wealth of information and help in designing and growing the garden of your dreams.
I think I have benefited from just about all those avenues. In the past, garden magazines were always an inspiration as well as real boons of learning from experts and seeing what products are available.
Garden ExpertsMake More Plants
Propagation is something that soon interests a gardener and can become more of a occupation as one gets intrigued by growing things. Online are many how-to ( a collated page of propagation articles I found most helpful), and there are a couple really good books on the topic. They are the type of bookshelf purchase that pay for themselves a hundred times over.
American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual of Practical Techniques 
and 
Creative Propagation
Dual Avenues Lead To Better Skills, More Know-How
Building garden knowledge comes in two main ways.
1
The most important is the hands on action of simply starting to put your hands in the soil and plant some seeds. Nothing replaces that part of growing in actual experience.
2
On the other side of it, garden making is an art with skills to learn. That is where good information and reading can come to inspire, even rescue, gardeners in their quest to grow something.
Both sources of garden knowledge go hand in hand. You are researching to soak up all the ideas you can…but then dig right into your garden and plant. Nature doesn’t require perfect skills.
Gardening is exciting and it is rewarding, and only trying it out can prove that to you.
There are many essays and info sheets on design on this site- the connection between making something beautiful and artistic and utilizing the landscape as a canvas has always fascinated me. It might be of strong interest to you, as well.
Design Articles
Index of How-To pages begins the process- it indexes all the site resources according to the phase of your project.
In recent years, a vegetable garden has gained importance for growing my own food; maybe it is for you, as well.
