Gardening Journal and Scrapbook

• Grab a Binder: Three ring binders work great for gardening journals since you can always add and remove items. Customize your binder by gluing pretty paper or fabric to the exterior. For binders with clear outer pockets, you can easily cut decorative paper to slide into the pockets, or create something unique of your own.
• Include a Notebook: Adding a notebook to your journal will allow you to take notes on what plants grew well, what plants had trouble and more. You can also include wish lists, first and last frost dates, notes on potting soil mixtures and sketches of plans for your garden.
• Add Page Protectors: Clear page protectors or pencil holders will work well as pockets for storing a variety of information that’s worth recording and remembering. Try adding pockets to store these items:
  • Plant Tags: It’s easy to forget what you planted in the past, so use a clear page protector or pencil holder as a pocket to store your plant tags so you can reference them later for care tips or purchasing more of the same plant.
  • Receipts: Many plants actually come with warranties, so include a pocket for storing your receipts. If you have a lot of receipts to organize, consider adding a new page protector for every month.
  • Articles: When you see an article in a magazine or on HomeMadeSimple.com that you’d like to save and use as a reference, clip or print it out and slide it into a page protector. Over time, you can accumulate quite the gardening reference guide.
  • Seeds: Instead of ordinary page protectors, try including 4x6” photo protectors. You can then use 4x6” envelopes to store extra seeds. After you label your envelopes, just slide them into the slots of the photo protector pages.

Making a Gardening Scrapbook
A gardening scrapbook will help you to collect all of your special memories in one place. Include a few of these items to make your scrapbook blossom:

• Photos: Take photos of your garden each season every year to showcase the progression of your garden over time. If you have family photos that were taken in the garden, include them with each season to showcase how your family has grown with your garden.
• Quotes: Include a few of your favorite gardening quotes as inspiration. Here are some to get you started:
  • "The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.” –Gertrude Jekyll
  • “A weed is but an unloved flower.” –Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  • “Friends are flowers in life’s garden.” –Proverb
  • “All things grow with love” –Proverb

• Pressed Flowers: Press flowers and leaves from your favorite plants and use them to adorn the pages of your scrapbook, or create separate pages for different types of plants.
• Recipes: If you plant fruits or vegetables, include recipes you’ve made using your homegrown plants. It’s a great way to remember just how useful your hobby is!

Recording the success of your garden year after year will help you to realize just how much your garden means to you. And as your garden grows, so will your gardening journal and scrapbook.