8 Tips Martha Stewart Swears by to Level Up Your Garden

If you didn't already know, Martha Stewart—an icon of all things home and lifestyle—is also a gardening pro: And she's officially back in print to help you level up your garden game with the launch of Martha Stewart Gardening. Whether it's rock star plant recommendations or a better way to care for your tools, there is sure to be a piece of advice you can use to grow your best garden yet.

“I am excited to share this very special issue with you," Stewart says. "It’s all about our favorite outdoor pastime: gardening. The pages of this volume are filled with ideas, inspiration, and the trusted information that the Martha brand has been creating for more than four decades: It’s a keeper… Gardening is a lifestyle for me. The time I spend outside and in the greenhouse is highly rewarding. I hope you, too, find solace, joy, and fulfillment on your gardening adventures.”

In anticipation of the publication, we've gathered a few of Stewart's best gardening pointers to enhance your own outdoor space.

1. Plant Milkweed

To attract more vital pollinators to your garden, try planting milkweed in a sunny area of your yard. This perennial will draw bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and more with its flowers. Milkweed leaves are also essential to the survival of the monarch butterfly when it's a growing caterpillar. There are over 70 native species of milkweed available; visit xerces.org to find out which ones are best to grow in your area.

2. Add Wildflowers

Their beauty aside, wildflowers are an excellent food source for adult monarch butterflies. Their sweet nectar fuels them as they flit around flowers, mate, and lay eggs. To find and purchase a seed mixture that will work best for your region, check americanmeadows.com.

3. Utilize Cardboard

Skip toxic herbicides and synthetic landscape fabric, and reach for used cardboard instead. This inexpensive and eco-friendly material is a simple solution to keeping your walking path free of weeds. Remove any labels or tape from your empty boxes, then flatten them down. Lay the cardboard wherever you'd like to prevent weeds from growing and cover with a couple inches of mulch, pine needles, or gravel. The cardboard will decompose into the soil and keep your path weed-free.

4. Make DIY Hose Guides

Stewart devised this handy trick at her Turkey Hill garden to protect plants from getting flattened when pulling hoses around a corner to water. To build a hose guide yourself, hammer a 24-inch length of rebar into the soil on the edge of a planting bed by a corner. Cover the rebar with a 1 1/2-inch diameter copper tubing. Cut the tubing to fit, and add a copper cap to top of the rebar. The copper covering will spin as the hose moves past it, preventing damage to your vegetation while also allowing you to easily maneuver the hose around.

5. Organize Your Garden Shed

If your garden shed (or garage) is home to a jumble of tools, a pegboard wall may be the solution to making your space feel less overwhelming the next time you reach for a trowel. To install, hang a pegboard (or multiple) directly on the wall and insert hooks to easily display your tools. To make them even more visible, paint the boards a contrasting color.

6. Care for Your Tools

Maintain your most-used garden tools (pruners, loppers, etc.) regularly and you'll have to replace them less often. Stewart recommends camellia oil, a Japanese oil extracted from the seed of a flowering shrub, to lubricate moving parts of tools and protect them from rusting with a preventative coating. If your tools need a deeper clean, wipe any metal parts with rubbing alcohol (particularly pruners and loppers) to prevent the spread of disease to other plants. Coat the tools in a layer of oil, and wipe away the excess. Oil any wooden handles once or twice a year to avoid splitting.

7. Propagate and Spread the Love

Rather than buying or growing brand new plants to fill your garden, consider propagating the ones that are already thriving. This cost-effective process is also great for sharing your plants with family and friends. You can propagate your favorite succulents from leaves and stems, and lots of popular houseplants such as philodendrons and pothos root easily from cuttings placed in water.

8. Use Low-Maintenance Groundcover Plants

Tiarella (commonly called foamflower) is an easy-to-grow groundcover plant that's ideal for adding color to shady areas. This perennial forms low mounds of pretty foliage, which is evergreen in places with mild winters. Its white or pink frothy flowers appear in late spring, enticing pollinators. These shade perennials are also avoided by deer and rabbits.