Let’s face it, even though gardening is a wonderful hobby, it’s also quite the annoying one from time to time!
The soil is never quite right, no matter how much you mulch it or let it dry out. You always miss a watering day, no matter how carefully you track when and where your plants need moisture. And plants may not even sprout at all, no matter how much love, care, and attention you put into them!
But when you fall in love with gardening, you get to know these issues pretty well. You understand that you’re working with the natural world, and with living, breathing plant life that’s always going to do its own thing. All in all, you get used to frustrations like these after a while!
However, there are some frustrating gardening tasks that never quite stop feeling annoying and exhausting. And if you’re anything like us, you’ll agree that tasks we’ve listed down below are the worst for it!
So check our list. If you do, you’ll also find a few tips on breaking down the frustrations into more manageable, enjoyable parts!
Mowing the Lawn
Mowing takes ages, has to be done fairly regularly, and prevents the lawn from becoming an eyesore.
How to make mowing the lawn less frustrating:
Tidy up the edges every now and then
You don’t have to mow the lawn every single week, or even every other week. Why not just tidy up the worst of the grass? Usually that means the edges, which are a lot quicker and simpler to mow back then the entire lawn at once.
Leave it for longer
Yes, you’re more than allowed to leave a lawn to grow out for a bit longer. Grass is one of those perennial plants that never quite die down too much, and the more you cut it back, the stronger it’s going to end up growing.
Think of it a bit like your garden’s hair; when you trim the ends frequently, the strands come out faster and faster.
Don’t mow at all!
And that’s the other option here! Why does the lawn need mowing at all? If you hate mowing that much, don’t put so much time and effort into it. Don’t mow at all, or only mow once throughout the entire summer!
Pulling Weeds
The bane of a gardener’s existence! Pull one weed and it seems like two more grow in its place!
While weeds get a much friendlier reception in the 2020s, they’re still not the best thing to see when you’re already fretting about a lack of soil space or plant diversity.
How to make pulling weeds less frustrating:
Use a powered weed eater
You don’t have to pull up weeds by hand, spending all that time on your knees and crawling around to find where the roots really come from. Instead, use a proper Worx weed eater to get the bulk of the plant for you. It’ll save your back in the long run!
Rip up from the root
You can’t pull weed heads and expect them to go away forever. Roots are still down there in the soil, where they have the chance to germinate and spring up again. Rip the plant from as deep down as possible.
Pruning Plants
Everything needs cutting back from time to time. Pruning, however, is a detail job that can really hurt the neck, back, and eyes.
How to make pruning less frustrating:
Plant less
Fewer plants, less work to do – as simple as that. You’re not spending as much time growing, maintaining, and caring for your shoots, so you’re also not spending too much energy on the garden either.
You’re just letting a few core stunners do most of the heavy lifting. This also allows you to focus your pruning efforts on plants you know well, so it removes the guesswork too!
Let shoots take up more room
This is really just a complementary point to the one above, but it does need to be said! After all, it’s the whole reason you’ve planted fewer seeds and saplings.
You’re trying to give your plants more room to breathe, as a whole, but a bit more room to spread out too. And when they’ve got this room, the garden doesn’t end up looking like such an overgrown mess in the end!
Gardening in Cold/Wet Temperatures
If you hate the wind and rain, you’re not alone! But the garden still needs your attention when it’s wet and cold outside.
How to make the weather less frustrating:
Check the weather ahead of time
Always have one eye on the weather forecast, no matter what season you’re in. Storms can happen at any time, and winter cold snaps can be deadly when they’ve not been prepped for.
But when you check the weather, you give yourself plenty of time to react. You can prepare your garden for the elemental onslaught coming its way, which then means you have less to clear up or rescue once it’s dry and sunny again.
Wait until the worst has passed!
You don’t have to muck out the water feature when it’s pouring down with rain! Those saplings in the greenhouse will survive just fine for another couple of hours without you too!
Got Some Annoying Gardening Jobs on the To-Do List?
We all do! And there’s no getting around them – that is, if you want your garden to remain the same good, cultivated condition you’ve worked to get into.
But you can try to temper the annoyance of having to do the things above again and again and again.
For example, use power tools instead of hand tools when ripping up invasive plants. Or if it’s going to storm in 2 days’ time, take the chance now to get your saplings indoors and out of the wind and rain.
Mainly, when you’re able to stop wasting your own time, energy, and patience, those gardening annoyances become a lot more pleasurable!
