Get Your Garden Ready: Our Essential Spring Gardening Tips

This article is part of our Mulch Madness series. Mulch Madness is The Spruce's gardening "full court press"—a curation of our very best tips and product recommendations to help you create a truly trophy-worthy lawn and garden.

Spring is almost here, and that means the moment that all avid gardeners have been waiting for: finally getting the garden ready for growing season. Whether you live in a colder climate or further south, March is a great time to get to work on a few tasks to get your garden in good shape for the spring and summer seasons. And it doesn't matter if you're a beginner gardener or a experienced pro—these tips will help you get your best garden yet this year.

9 Expert-Recommended Items for Starting a New Garden

Adding a garden to your yard is a great way to spruce it up. Not only are gardens visually pleasing, there’s nothing as satisfying as watching a garden that you have created and tended to with your own hands flourish. Plus, there are so many different kinds of gardens that you can create, from vegetable gardens to flower gardens to rock gardens and more, there is truly a garden style out there for everyone.

The first step to any gardening journey is, of course, to actually start the garden. Working with pre-made garden beds is one thing, but if you’re starting a garden from scratch there are a few things you need to know, and a few essentials that you will definitely need. To get the scoop on these must-have items we asked a couple of gardening experts what products they couldn’t live without.

How to Successfully Start Seeds Indoors, According to a Pro

With spring right around the corner, it’s time to start getting excited about outdoor gardening. Whether you already know exactly what you want to grow in your garden, or you’re testing your green thumb for the first time, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed or get carried away. The best plan is an early one, especially when it comes to starting seeds indoors.

Many people start seeds indoors while the weather is still too cold and then replant them outside once the final frost has passed. If you’re looking to do this, there are several things you can do to ensure that your seeds sprout successfully and are ready for your garden once the temperatures warm up. We spoke with a few gardening experts to get the very best tips for you. Even pros might learn something new.

11 Principles to Know When Laying Out a Vegetable Garden

If you live somewhere that's still firmly rooted in wintertime, this may be hard to believe—but right now is actually a great time to start mapping out your spring and summer gardens. This is especially true if you’re tackling your very first veggie garden, but even experienced gardeners benefit from planning their garden layout and determining which crops they are growing way in advance.

Planting vegetables for the first time can be an overwhelming task, to say the least, so we turned to the experts to ask for their pro tips. Here’s what they had to say.

The Spring Gardening Tips Pro Gardeners Wish They Knew Sooner

As spring rapidly approaches, trees begin to bud and long-dormant grass starts to shake itself awake from its winter slumber. From gardening experts to novices, it's a period of time to prepare and grow flowers, vegetables, or other plants.

We asked a group of professional gardeners what tips they would share with greener growers that they wished someone had told them when they first began. Keep reading on to learn tips for having a bountiful garden this season.

5 Garden and Yard Trends to Look Forward to in 2023

With a new year comes new trends for pretty much everything. Garden and yard trends are no exception to this, especially as more and more people have gotten into gardening and yard care over the past few years.

With over 1 million followers on TikTok, Joe Clark knows a thing or two about gardening trends. We talked to him to find out five garden and yard trends to look forward to in 2023. 

How to Start a Garden From Scratch

Gardening can easily become a lifelong hobby with no limit to the sense of satisfaction, enjoyment, and horticultural knowledge you can develop. However, to be successful and efficient gardeners, several aspects of gardening are important to know and consider before you create your first planting bed.

Here are nine tips and techniques to help you start a garden.

12 Essential Spring Cleaning Tasks for the Garden

If you're a serious gardener, you'll be out in your garden the first warm second of spring. While there is no harm in cleaning up fallen branches and debris, wait until the soil is no longer wet enough to form a ball in your hand before walking on it and compacting it. But don't wait too long to start your clean up. It's much easier to cut plants back before the old growth gets tangled up in the new growth. Following these tips for a beautiful spring and summer garden.

43 Perennials to Cut Back in the Spring

Gardeners in warm climates can treat fall, and sometimes even winter, as supplemental growing seasons. But for gardeners who experience hard winters, fall is a great time to get a head start on garden clean-up. We hear a lot about four seasons of interest in the garden, but this rarely applies to perennial plants. Most perennials turn ugly as the temperatures drop and any plant that is diseased, infested, or otherwise in poor condition should certainly be cut back and disposed of rather than leaving them to over-winter.

However, some perennials simply don’t fare well if they are pruned too late in the season. They need the winter protection provided by their fallen leaves to help them survive. These 43 plants are best pruned in spring.