Twenty useful gardening tips for an Indian home, from the people who keep the gardens

Short, practical, and learned the hard way. Each one is something a gardener on TheHire has told a customer more than once. Save this; most of it costs nothing.

Water

1. Use a finger, not a calendar. Second knuckle into the mix. Dry, water until it runs from the base. Damp, wait. "Every day" is a habit that drowns plants in December and starves them in May.
2. Water in the morning. Leaves that stay wet overnight grow fungus; water in the heat of the day evaporates before it reaches the roots. In peak summer, a second round at dusk for small pots only.
3. Put a drip line on anything over twenty pots. ₹20 per sq ft in labour, ₹10–₹25 per sq ft in parts, a timer on the tap, and the garden survives your travel. On a terrace fed from the overhead tank, buy a low-pressure kit or add a small pump.
4. Mulch in March. Two inches of dry leaves, coir or straw on every pot and bed halves the summer watering and keeps the roots cool.
5. Get a tap on the terrace. A plumber's half-day. Every gardener who has carried buckets up a floor will tell you it is the best money in the garden.

Soil

6. Never put plain garden soil in a pot. One part soil, one part compost, one part cocopeat, a handful of sand, a spoon of neem cake. It drains, it feeds, it holds water without drowning.
7. Rinse new cocopeat twice. The compressed blocks carry salt from the coast; unrinsed, they burn seedlings.
8. Compost twice a year, before the monsoon and in October. A ₹700 manure visit works a bag of vermicompost into everything at once. A pot of mix feeds for three months; after that, it is what you add.
9. Old dung only. Fresh cow dung burns roots and seeds the bed with weeds. Six months old, dry and crumbly, or buy vermicompost and skip the question.
10. Start a compost bin. ₹1,500 to ₹4,000 for a home vermicompost unit, kitchen waste in, next year's manure out. The best fed gardens in any city are the ones with a bin in the corner.

Plants

11. Count the sun before you buy. Stand in the spot at 9, 12 and 3. Six hours for anything that fruits or flowers; three for leafy greens and foliage; under two, only snake plant, pothos, ZZ and peace lily. Most "no flowers" complaints are a six-hour plant in a three-hour corner.
12. Re-pot every two years. Tip it out; if the root ball holds the pot's shape, it is overdue. One size up, fresh mix, ₹60 a pot. A much bigger pot rots the roots; a third wider is right.
13. Prune after flowering, not before. Hibiscus, bougainvillea and ixora after their flush; fruit trees in late winter; dead and crossing wood any time. Cut just above an outward-facing node with bypass secateurs. A tree round is ₹400 each.
14. Wipe mealybug before you spray it. A wet cloth takes off the clusters neem cannot reach. Then neem oil at 5 ml a litre with a drop of soap, in the evening, every ten days for a month. If it is across the garden, a ₹600 spray visit.
15. Buy short, stocky seedlings. Dark green, roots just showing at the holes. Tall and pale has been starved of light and sulks for a month. Marigolds, petunias and the winter annuals go in during the second half of October.
16. Do not feed a plant that is stressed. Not in May, not when it is wilting, not the week after re-potting. Food is for a plant that is growing; to one that is struggling it is salt.

Money

17. Bundle the jobs into one visit. Re-potting, a spray and the lawn repair in one request cost less than three visits; gardeners on TheHire discount from the fourth item.
18. Monthly beats per-visit at four visits. ₹1,500 for four small-garden visits is less than four at ₹400, and the same person learns the plants. At eight visits a month, ₹5,000 for two hours daily on payroll is cheaper still.
19. Buy from the government nursery first. The state horticulture nursery in most districts sells honest plants, manure and cocopeat at fixed prices. Ask the gardener for a written list with sizes and quantities and buy exactly that, or ask for the nursery bill in your name.
20. Lay the lawn in the right season and the right grass, once. Bermuda or Selection 1 for sun and children, Mexican or Korean for a shaded ornamental patch; monsoon in the north, October in the south. ₹25 per sq ft plus turf at ₹12–₹30 per sq ft, and three weeks of daily watering. A lawn laid in May in the wrong grass is ₹12 per sq ft of repair every year after.

Three more for people who own the house

21. Waterproof the terrace before the first pot goes up, and flood-test it. A damp ceiling costs more than every plant on the roof. Then a drainage layer, then the garden at ₹70 per sq ft.
22. Plant trees in the monsoon, ₹350 each, in a pit twice the root ball, staked for a year. The rain does the first month's watering and the tree is established before summer.
23. Book the pre-monsoon visit in May. ₹900 for the drainage fixed, the shrubs opened, the trees pruned and the compost in. Gardens that have this done do not rot in August.

Related tips you might want next

Termites in the garden wood, white grubs in the lawn, and the mosquitoes breeding in a forgotten saucer are the pest-control trade's side of the garden, and the guide for that trade picks up where these tips stop. The terrace waterproofing is the mason's, and the tap is the plumber's.