The Best Plants for a Brand New Novice Gardener

Written by Kelsey W.

Growing your own garden plants is a fantastic adventure, but what if you’ve never really done anything other than water a houseplant or put a few cut flowers in a vase? Do you need a degree in botany or horticulture to understand all the finer points of gardening, or can you just jump into the fray and get decent enough results?

The good news is that you don’t need to sign up for gardening classes (though more information is never a bad thing), and the better news is that there are quite a few plants out there that are quite forgiving to the novice gardener. These plants will thrive even when you forget to water them a few times or when you’re just not sure which bag of fertilizer to give them. 

These plants don’t necessarily need the perfect soil to live, and they won’t get too angry at you if they receive just a little too much or too little sunlight. With spring arriving in Southern California, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about making your home a little greener with these easy plants for first-time gardeners.

Start Indoors with a Houseplant

If you’re a little nervous about actually digging around in the dirt outside, the best place to start is with an indoor plant like a pothos or philodendron, which are two leafy plants that look a lot alike and are routinely confused. However, they act almost like twins as they’re impossible to kill, even when you forget to water them for a month and put them in a place with terrible lighting.

Another option for an unkillable plant is a snake plant, which is a super popular houseplant but is also something you’ll see frequently in shady areas around Southern California. You might try growing a young snake plant in your home, and then, if you feel up to it, you can transfer that plant to a shady spot in your lawn or on your balcony. Your snake plant will grow happily with almost no interference.

You can even start your vegetable garden indoors in little pots, which can help you learn to keep an eye on your baby plants, as well as keep them safe from birds as they become seedlings. Your young seedlings are quite tasty to birds and little animals that might pass through your yard, so it’s a good idea to keep them in a safe spot until they have a little heft to them.

Two ideal vegetables you might want to start with include the tomato plant and the radish plant. Tomatoes grow like weeds in Southern California, but you’ll usually need to give them a really sunny spot after getting them started, so be prepared to move them outside once they really start growing. Your radish plant will grow without effort in a pot, or you can transport it somewhere in your yard once it gets beyond the baby green stage and starts growing the radish.

Making Your Yard Beautiful with Flowers

If you’re worried about devoting enough time to your plants, or you’re just concerned about your ability to ensure a seed reaches its full potential, look no further than the sunflower. You can sprinkle seeds in the ground just about anywhere on your lawn, and you’ll eventually get beautiful sunflowers.

Not only will sunflowers grow in places where other plants would complain about the soggy soil, but they won’t even notice a drought or lack of water if you forget to water the area for a while. You’ll eventually and inevitably get some beautiful sunflowers, and the large size of the plants when they’re full-grown makes the experience so incredibly exciting, especially for a first-time gardener.

Another terrific option for an easy and beautiful bed of flowers is the resilient pansy, which actually grows like a perennial in Southern California, returning every year with new flowers. Pansies are generally known as early risers in the flower world, appearing in the late winter or early spring, but they tend to bloom whenever they want in SoCal, often appearing throughout the fall, too.

Another plant that’s well-suited to the Southern California environment and the hand of a beginner gardener is the zinnia, which is a plant you can grow all the way from seed with almost no effort or in-depth knowledge about plants.  All Zinnia seeds need is warm soil, so just make sure the temperatures are balmy before tossing the seeds somewhere in a bed at your home.

The easy part about growing zinnias is that they’re drought-resistant, which means they’re an excellent partner for beginner gardeners just getting used to a regular watering schedule. To ensure success with your zinnias, just make sure their soil isn’t soggy, and they should fare quite well throughout the summer. Give them a little extra water if you see them getting dry.

Go with Root Vegetables for Your First Garden

Root vegetables are terrifically easy to grow as long as you get the first few steps right in planting them and you know how long the plant should take to reach maturity. Not all plants take the same amount of time to reach harvest, so marking the date on your calendar when a particular plant should become ready for harvest will help you remain patient while waiting for the plant to do its thing.

If you’ve already put the aforementioned radish plant on your list, that’s great! You can enjoy radishes within a month when you plant these fast growers, and it’s literally impossible to make a mistake in growing them. Another excellent and easy plant to fill up your novice garden is the carrot, which will take a little longer to produce.

You’ll usually have to wait at least two months for your carrot plants to produce vegetables capable of being harvested, but all you need to do in those two months is throw water in the general direction of the carrots in order to get them to grow. The best thing about carrots is it’s always a surprise as far as how big the carrot will get before you pull it out of the ground.

Another beginner-friendly vegetable is the potato, which is similarly simple in that it really only needs occasional watering during the months they take to mature. Note that some varieties of potatoes can take about two months to mature but others may take up to four months. The most important thing about potatoes is spacing. As long as you space them about 30 inches apart, they’ll grow without a lot of effort on your part.

General Growing Wisdom for Beginner Gardeners

Now that you know what plants to put in your garden, let’s learn a little about the general habits you should adopt to keep your plants happy. For the most part, you’ll want to make sure your plants never get too soggy and don’t remain totally parched for too long. Yes, these plants are hardy, but it’s helpful to get in the habit of watering your plants when they need it, so you can branch out into more demanding plants in the future.

If you have dreams of tackling difficult-to-grow plants like orchids and mastering the art of growing roses (which aren’t truly hard but just need regular attention and a set schedule of care), you’ll need to start forming good habits, especially when it comes to watering, checking soil aeration, and visiting your garden regularly.

One particular note to remember when starting your first garden is that it’s actually quite easy to pay them too much attention and over-water the plants during their first weeks with you. In most cases, you don’t need to water your plants every single day, and doing so can actually make it tougher for young plants to gain a foothold. 

Living in a soggy environment can also make plants more susceptible to things like root rot and bug infestations, and the last thing you want as a beginner gardener is a visit from bugs! So make sure you take a look at the best watering schedule for your plants and make an effort to avoid getting too crazy with the watering can. Too much attention can sometimes be just as damaging as not enough.

Find Beginner-Friendly Plants at Green Thumb Nursery

Are you nervous about planting your first garden? Do you want to find a plant that will thrive even though you’re not a gardening guru? Let the friendly experts at Green Thumb Nursery help you find a beautiful plant for your home, whether that’s a lovely flowering plant for your porch or a new vegetable for your first vegetable garden.

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