The 14 Best Gardening Tips From Martha Stewart

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Martha Stewart is the queen of many things — of food, of hosting, of two-ingredient turkey burgers, and of friendships with West Coast rappers — and you can add being the queen of the garden to her lengthy list of titles. The homemaking expert has carefully cultivated a blossoming garden in every home she's owned, and for years she's profiled the outside space of her 153-acre property in Bedford, New York, on her TV shows. Add to that the extensive and regularly updated gardening section on her website, and it's fair to say that she knows a thing or two about planting, growing, and harvesting.

With so many years of experience, Stewart has accumulated a bunch of tips along the way, and she's certainly not a gatekeeper of her hard-won knowledge. Over the years, Stewart has shared pretty much everything she's learned with her viewers and readers, and in doing so has turned what can be an intimidating job into something that virtually everyone can do. From landscaping your garden and arranging its aesthetics, to planting in containers, correctly composting (which can decrease food waste), and when to say goodbye to your plants once and for all, Stewart knows the score.

Martha Stewart has often spoken about the importance of planning in the kitchen, and in your garden it should be no different. The home expert is a big fan of pre-planning her garden landscapes, and while in some instances she keeps it a little more loose, for decorative gardens she considers things way before she even sets foot on the ground. Stewart likes to draw out her gardens ahead of time on graph paper, with each square equating to a square-foot of ground. She begins with the outer border, measuring it out carefully, and then draws each bed within the larger space.

Then comes the fun part: Stewart takes her colored pencils, and jots out the plants that she wants to grow in each bed. Doing this gives her a visual guide for how her garden will ultimately look, and also allows her to figure out how many of each plant she'll need or how many seeds to buy. Additionally, it lets her experiment with the shapes and sizes of her beds to create a bit of variation in the ultimate result. To do this yourself, all you need is some graph paper, some pencils, and an evening to yourself.

There's something about a big, sprawling lawn that feels simultaneously grand and peaceful. However, anyone who's ever had to maintain one will know that peace soon flies completely out of the window. That's why Martha Stewart recommends trying to keep yours fairly small, and instead focusing on utilizing space to tend to your other plants. Stewart states that lawns are way more high maintenance than you might think, and she's right: To keep them looking manicured and neat, they need mowing constantly, and they require a lot of water to stay green and verdant.

Stewart points out that lawns can be pretty impactful on the environment, due to the high amount of water they need, as well as the pesticides and herbicides you may require to keep them alive. These will all have a pretty big impact on your bank balance, too. Oh, and lawns don't just last forever: They frequently need reseeding, which can be a time-consuming and costly job. Save yourself the trouble, and stick to a modest patch of grass.

If you're just starting out in a garden, it can be tempting to tackle everything at once. After all, you want to make it all look good, right? While that may be true, there's virtue in taking things slow and starting with a smaller plot of land. Martha Stewart recommends doing just this, noting that the biggest mistake you can make with a garden is starting too big.

"If you start with a smaller plot of land, you can really master the art of growing," explains Stewart in her "Ask Martha" series on YouTube. Beginning with a contained area will allow you to figure out what works for you and how to tend to your plants properly. "Then, you can get bigger and bigger and bigger, and dig more and more, and make a more elaborate garden," she says. 

Although Stewart gives this advice in relation to vegetable gardens, it's really true of any type of garden out there. Beginning too big will likely see you quickly getting overwhelmed and mismanaging your plants and garden, and probably falling out of love with it all before you've even set off.

How much do you know about the soil in your garden? Martha Stewart is willing to bet that most people don't know a lot. That's kinda a fair assumption: A lot of folks are none the wiser about the composition of their soil, and plant their flowers and vegetables in them without a lot of consideration of it. Then, they get frustrated when their plants don't grow as well as they should.

This exact scenario is why Stewart strongly advocates for people getting a soil analysis of their entire garden. She explains that soil can vary considerably from one part of your property to another, and the type in each area can dictate what goes where. Sandy soil, for instance, is best for vegetables like carrots, tomatoes (which you should be learning to water properly), or zucchini, whereas peaty soil is the desired choice for shrubs. Meanwhile, lilac bushes fare well in chalky soil. 

Doing a full analysis of your soil can not only save you a lot of time, but a lot of money on wasted plants that don't grow. Stewart even suggests doing a soil analysis of gardens before you buy a property to ensure that you can create your outdoor space properly.

If there's one thing you should know about Martha Stewart, it's that she loves a raised plant bed in her gardens. Not only do raised plant beds make your garden look neat as a pin, but they also tend to be less susceptible to weeds and invasive pests, especially if you place a barrier around them to protect your plants. They also tend to be more accessible and easy to maintain, and on top of all that they'll help your plants grow more effectively: Using a raised bed, like this galvanized planter from Land Guard, gives the roots more depth to grow.

To make raised beds, though, Stewart doesn't pile up soil. Instead, she digs around them. After she marks out her raised beds in accordance with her drawn-up plans, she then digs away the paths in between them. In doing this, she creates a two-level system in her garden, with the beds at regular level and the paths slightly lower down. Bear in mind that this can take a fair bit of time to do, and you may have to perform the job in several different stages. As such, it's a good idea to look at the weather beforehand, to give yourself a clear run of days without rain.

Like pretty much anyone else, Martha Stewart likes roses — and although some people think these flowers are difficult to grow, the home and gardening expert knows exactly how to make them thrive. It all starts with the amount of space you give them. Stewart advises that you should dig each hole for your rose plants to a depth of 1½ times the length of its roots. It should also be around twice as wide as the roots themselves, to give them adequate space to grow and spread out.

Figuring this all out is pretty simple: Just take each plant and measure the length of the roots with a ruler, and then place the ruler in your hole for comparison. Then, before you place them in the hole, add half a scoop of rose fertilizer, like Burpee Organic Bloom all-natural food, and half a scoop of bone meal to help them thrive. Finally, pop in a little bit of rich composted soil, and then put in your roses, filling in the hole around them.

In recent years, there's been a lot of emphasis on native plants. The thinking goes that native plants, which grow in your area organically, are way easier to maintain and don't require a load of exterior help from pesticides or fertilizers. Although this makes sense, Martha Stewart says that being too prescriptive about what are traditionally native plants for your region might be a mistake. "With climate change, all this talk about 'native this' and 'native that' is undergoing a change itself, because what was once considered native to Florida is now practically native to the northeast," she said in an interview with Veranda.

Given how quickly things can change, you may well discover a few years down the line that the plants that you've so lovingly tended are no longer suitable for your area. Rather than spending too much time dwelling on native plants, you should instead think about invasive plants and how they can end up wrecking your garden. Plants like knotweed, knapweed, and wisteria can all quickly infiltrate gardens and take over, and they should be kept at bay.

Check any garden influencer's TikTok, and they'll probably tell you exactly what you should be planting this season. The problem is that a lot of these plants are on-trend, and while that may not sound like a bad thing, it kinda is. Following trends in your garden is something that Martha Stewart advises against, for the sheer fact that things take a very long time to grow and establish themselves. By the time your garden is fully in bloom, you might find that things have moved on, and your outside space is out of date.

As well as this, it's worth bearing in mind that some garden trends take way more maintenance than you might expect. Stewart is particularly cautious of meadow gardens, which have seen a lot of popularity recently. "It takes a couple of years to prepare a piece of land for a meadow because you have to kill everything else in the soil," Stewart stated in a Veranda interview. "You can't just go out and sprinkle some seeds and expect to have a wildflower meadow. A friend of mine did that and now she's reverting to hay fields." Sounds like something we'd rather avoid, to be honest.

The thing about gardens is that while they can sometimes give the appearance of being wild and free, the best ones are carefully cultivated spaces that have a lot of planning going into them. However, the thing is that while you can plan your garden carefully on paper, you might feel completely different once you see it in person. This is why Martha Stewart recommends placing your plants before you plant them, so you can step back and assess what the ultimate effect will look like.

Importantly, though, while doing this you should think carefully about how each plant will grow. If you know that it will grow larger than others, you don't want to give it the same amount of space as everything else; it'll just get cramped and overwhelm the garden's appearance. Give them plenty of room to flourish. Additionally, bear in mind that plants are like icebergs, and their roots will grow much larger than you think — so give each one adequate depth and room in your beds.

Succulents may have gained a reputation as every millennial's favorite houseplant, but they're the ideal choice for gardeners of any age. They're pretty low-maintenance, they can last for a long time without water, and they live for a long time. Plus, one of the benefits of succulents is that they're aesthetically adaptable: You don't have to just plant them in a pot — you can do some fairly funky things with them.

One of Martha Stewart's favorite ways to plant succulents is in a strawberry pot. These pots, like this Mr. Stacky 5-Tier Stackable Strawberry Planter, come with several cut-out holes in the side, which Stewart uses to place small succulents in each one. She uses a variety of different succulents to give the pot a dynamic, colorful effect, and then tops the pot with a larger plant surrounded by smaller, shrub-like ones. The good thing about using a strawberry pot is that you can water it from the top, and the liquid will work its way down to the roots of each succulent without any fuss. Just make sure you're using a combo of planting medium, sand, and pearlite for the best results so you'll have plenty of fruit for your strawberry salads. 

Anyone who's planted their vegetables or flowers in containers will know how heavy they can get. These pots can rapidly become weighed down with bulky, claggy soil, and if your containers are made from ceramics they can be pretty much unliftable once they're full. One of Martha Stewart's top tips for containers is to not fill them all the way with your soil, but instead to line the bottoms with scrunched-up bubble wrap. This creates a base for the soil to sit on, meaning that you have to use less to fill it up. You can also use peanuts if you prefer a more organic material.

Once you've placed your bubble wrap in the bottom, you should then line the rest of the pot with landscape cloth. This stops the soil from dripping down into your bubble wrap, and keeps it all in one place. Fill the rest of the pot up with soil and tuck down or cut out the rest of your landscape cloth, before proceeding to plant your chosen items inside. Just bear in mind that you won't want to fill up your pot with too much bubble wrap, as this can stop your plants from having enough space for their roots to flourish.

Any gardener knows that they need the right tools to work their garden. However, all too many of us novices think that all we need is a hand trowel and a spade. As it turns out, you need a lot more than that to master your outside space. Martha Stewart also recommends grabbing yourself a hand hoe (also known as a weeding hoe), like this Edward Tools Carbon Steel hand hoe, which will help you loosen soil with greater accuracy and dig out smaller weeds around your herbs (unless you have a kitchen herb garden, that is). Additionally, you should get a hand fork with rounded tines, a pair of hand shears, and a hand pruner.

As for your larger tools, it's worth remembering that a spade and a shovel are two different things. Your spade should be used for digging into the ground and turning over soil, while a shovel should be used for lifting items and transferring them to a wheelbarrow. Although you can be a little flexible with your tools, Stewart's attention to detail over what each one is used for is something we could all learn from.

If you're anything like us, you likely don't like to give up on stuff that easily. Hey, we admire that trait in you. However, in the case of your garden, you might want to learn the art of giving up. In a conversation with Veranda, Martha Stewart pointed out that the act of struggling over plants that just aren't thriving is largely pointless and ultimately pretty frustrating. "There's no sense in struggling over it because you're the one who's going to have to look at it all the time," she said.

So rather than do this, it's far better to move on. Dig out the plant that's not working, and replace it with another one. Stewart points out that gardens aren't the kinds of spaces where absolutely everything goes your way all the time. These are organic, living, breathing zones where things can go wrong. There's no shame at all in admitting defeat, as long as you do so gracefully.

Martha Stewart's Bedford farm is a pretty big operation, and she has an abundance of animals and plants that create a lot of waste. As a result, she's become a dab hand at composting. "We recycle all the leaves that fall from the trees," she said in an interview with Miracle-Gro. "We recycle any old and rotting hay from the fields. We hire a tub grinder, which is a wood grinder that's bigger than a truck, every single year to grind up all branches and all dead and dying trees." After Stewart takes up all of this organic matter, she then composts it to put on her other plants.

You don't have to have a full-scale working farm to do this; you can easily compost your leftover plants each season, and mix them in with any food waste to create homemade fertilizer. However, one thing that Stewart warns against is composting weeds. "Don't recycle your weeds because it just continues the cycle of invasives in the garden," she advises. "Shake off the soil from the roots and then all of those weeds go into a dumpster." By doing this, you can keep your garden looking hale, hearty, and weed-free. Don't forget, too, that you can use kitchen waste like used coffee grounds as a fertilizer.