The benefits to keeping a garden journal are many. How many times have you thought you would remember to do a task in early spring, only to forget about it completely over the winter? When you try to garden from memory, you’re simply not as well-equipped to make decisions or carry out your plans. What you choose to record, however, and the format you decide to keep your journal in, are highly personal choices. Try to decide first what you’d like your journal to accomplish. Here are some of the functions a garden journal can perform:

Planning source. Perhaps the most satisfying type of garden journal is the dream book, filled with notes taken on garden tours, photos of public gardens, magazine pictures of gorgeous plant combinations or perhaps the perfect pergola. This format serves as a source of inspiration and a beginning point for future plans. You may also simply need a place to jot down reminders – like, “move lily bulbs to back of border when foliage begins to die in fall.” Another type of planning journal may have graph-paper pages, for scale drawings of garden plans.

Record keeper. This type of journal can take many formats. Perhaps you want to keep notes on what blooms when – a book with one page devoted to each day of the year will allow you, at a glance, to see the past three years and what was in flower during the first week of April. It’s also a good place to keep records on the exact names of plants, since labels invariably become lost or illegible in the ground. You can organize your records by date, month, season, garden area, or whatever. You could even develop a monthly maintenance calendar that outlines when to stake the peonies (before they get too tall), when to prune the roses, and when to fertilize the lawn.

Organizer. A journal with pockets or plastic sleeves can help you keep track of garden catalogs, receipts, order forms, helpful magazine articles, seed packets, notes that you scribbled on a scrap paper, etc. A pretty decoupage box can also be a good place to keep things together – no one says a journal has to be a book.

Personal journal. More like a traditional journal, this format allows a gardener to write about the impact their garden makes on their life. It’s a place for reflection – on the miracle of rebirth of spring, the impatience that accompanies planting a small plant, the delights of nature.

Photo album. For those who aren’t much into writing, snapshots tell a story too. Looking back on spring’s photos from autumn’s perspective can remind you what needs to be moved or divided, or where there is a gap in your succession of bloom.

Bookstores often feature blank garden journals that feature artwork, quotes, or horticultural info. Some other suggestions for journal possibilities include: blank books, calendars, accordion files, a scrapbook, a photo album, a loose-leaf binder. Web Journals are nice and open to the public to share.

Whether you garden for beauty or for food, keeping a journal helps you make the most of your efforts.

I personally keep a Journal I have for years. It stays really dirty and not up to date... but I find it very informative and helpful in the garden maintence area. I can't always remember where I put things.

For a journal that lasts for a LIFETIME of all your gardening entries check out www.aGardenersJournal.com :)