Use this quiz to find out what DIY garden ideas you should try in 2023 based on your gardening goals and resolutions.

Find DIY garden ideas for your gardening goals

If you’re itching to make some changes to your gardening spaces in the new year, it’s time to set your gardening goals for 2023. Take the quiz below to determine which gardening goal you want to achieve and which DIY garden ideas can help you accomplish it.

Write your answers on a piece of paper, and after the quiz is over, add up the number of ones, twos, threes, and fours to find which DIY garden ideas you’ll like depending on your 2023 gardening resolution!

Which space do you want to focus your green thumbs on? 

Is there a space that you are most looking forward to turning green?

1. Your living room, bedroom or any other indoor space. 
2. Your patio, balcony or courtyard.
3. Your large garden.
4. Your small garden.

What gets your plant-loving heart pumping with excitement when browsing the aisles of the nursery? 

When you take a trip down the aisle of Lifestyle Home Garden (or scroll through our online store), which plants get you the most excited to get into the garden? 

1. Easy-to-grow indoor plants like the dracaena marginata or interesting hanging plants like the string of beads. 
2. Fragrant and ready-to-use herbs and vegetables.
3. Trees, large potted plants, or raised garden bed plants.
4. Cute but impactful shrubs and captivating succulents. 

What do you want to get out of your garden?

Choose which benefit you want to get from your garden. 

1. Adding pops of nature and greenery to your indoor spaces for aesthetics. 
2. Edible plants and vegetables to use in your meals and cooking.
3. Stunning scenery to wander in and rest in, or have a magical space for your children to play.
4. Enjoy gardening as a hobby. 

Choose something else to explore in your gardening endeavours

What is something you would like to explore while gardening?

1. Learning about plants and gardening techniques. 
2. Enhancing your cooking skills and saving money on fresh produce. 
3. Exploring organic gardening and eco-friendly gardening techniques. 
4. Learning how to keep a small garden thriving with water-wise techniques. 

Here are your DIY garden ideas based on your gardening goals

Tally up your results and see below our exciting ideas for your garden this new year. Remember to stay on trend and up-to-date with our seasonal advice by signing up for our newsletter.

Mostly 1s: You want to decorate your interiors with more plants

Our homes make a perfect blank canvas for pretty greenery and florals. Indoor plants not only improve the overall aesthetic of a place, but studies indicate that they can improve emotions, promote creativity, decrease stress, and remove air contaminants.

Indoor plants, which come in a variety of sizes, forms, colours, and textures ranging from big leafy palms to little shapely cacti, not to mention flowering types, are adaptable décor ideas. Here are our favourite DIY garden ideas for indoor plants. 

Make a plant shelf and fill it up with varieties of your favourite plants

Choose wooden shelving that fits your aesthetic, and a wall that you want to add some green zest to.

Next, select your plants. Plants, especially ones that trail, will add softness and freshness to any shelf. A rich display of cascading ferns, polka dot begonias, and potted calandiva provides the illusion of an indoor jungle in your family’s living room (or any room of your choice). 

Start a love affair with macrame and hanging plants 

A macrame plant hanger is an easy craft that you can make to add a vintage touch to your interiors. All you need is some macrame cord and the perfect hanging plants. 

• Shop bright yellow, lime and fresh green sweetheart plant. 
• Shop the heartleaf philodendron.
• Shop golden pothos.

Once you’ve created your macrame plant hangers, hang your trailing plants around your kitchen, living room, bathroom or bar area. 

Paint pots for your indoor plants

Painting terracotta pots is a creative way to bring colour into your house. Colours, designs, and patterns may be mixed and matched. You are free to do anything your creative imagination conjures up. 

Start by purchasing your terracotta pots. 

Cleaning terracotta pots is the first step before painting them. To prepare brand-new clay pots for painting, run them under water and scrub them gently with a cleaning brush.

Use acrylic or spray paint to paint your pots. They are equally good for painting on terracotta pots.

Allow to dry overnight.

And you have an artwork to showcase, along with your glorious plant. 

Mostly 2s: You want to grow food or herbs in your garden

One of the most rewarding DIY garden ideas is to start a vegetable or herb garden, and there are so many creative ways to do just that. 

Here’s why you should be growing your own edible garden:

• It encourages you to consume more fresh fruits and veggies.
• You get to choose which fertilisers and pesticides come into touch with your food.
• It allows you to choose when to harvest your food. Garden-ripened veggies have more nutrients than store-bought vegetables that must be harvested early.

Here are our favourite herb gardening ideas:

Go vertical with a trellis herb garden

Introduce a space-saving trellis to your balcony. 

Using a trellis from the hardware store and a few hanging planters, create a vertical space-saving herb garden wall. 

Hang as many tin or porcelain pots as you like, then fill them with your favourite herbs.

The best part is that a vertical trellis garden can go great with the rest of your balcony decor. Add lanterns, candles, fairy lights, and other “lit” pieces to your trellis to really show personality.  

Plant your herbs in a pallet

Turn discarded wooden pallets into lovely planters to give them new life. 

Add weed cloth to the back of your pallet, staple gun it to keep it in place, and then fill the pallet with soil to begin planting right away.

Make your vegetables the focal point of your garden

Some veggies, such as rainbow Swiss chard, are too lovely to be limited to the vegetable garden. Make them the centre point of your garden by planting them in wooden planters or other containers. This is a highly inventive and decorative method to create a vegetable garden. As long as it has proper drainage, almost any container will suffice.

Vegetable bedding plants

You have to think outside the garden every now and then. Plants that grow quickly and are picked regularly, such as lettuce and other salad greens, make attractive bedding plants. 

A shaded area beneath a tree is ideal for them. You might also try a row of anything like carrots along a sunny border.

Garden pests may find your vegetable bed appealing, but if you interplant with companion flowers that have a strong aroma, they should be deterred.

Take your raised beds to new heights

Raised beds are sometimes only a few centimetres from the ground. While this provides benefits to the plants, such as greater drainage and early soil warming in spring, raising it even higher provides even more benefits and an interesting gardening look. 

Lifting the planting beds to waist height means fewer concerns around pests that would otherwise necessitate an extra fence.

Mostly 3s: You want to try organic gardening and gardening for the environment

Organic gardening is a greener, more environmentally friendly approach to caring for our plants and veggies. Adopting this mindset is especially appealing to gardeners who care about the environment and cultivate food in order to become more self-sufficient or sustainable.

Rather than directly feeding plants with chemicals, organic gardening involves treating the soil so that it creates healthy nutrients.

Try garden composting for organic soil maintenance.

Make your own garden compost

This is an environmentally beneficial way to dispose of kitchen and garden waste, as well as a fantastic foundation for soil feeding.

The Wonder Organic Compost Activator is a 100% natural microbial-based solution that accelerates the natural decomposition of garden waste in your garden compost.

Turn all your food waste into compost with the help of the ​​Earth Probiotic Bokashi Bin! This food waste bin has an internal strainer and is ideal for households. 

Other ways to use your garden for good

• Increase urban green space through increasing plant life and reducing the amount of turf grass.
• Make a home for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Mostly 4s: You want to use water-wise strategies to keep your huge garden prospering

Water-wise gardening is not just for arid locations, nor does it limit you to native plants, cacti, and succulents. 

This water-efficient gardening strategy may be applied to many various types of gardens.

Start with reducing your lawn areas

Most lawns take a lot of water, fertiliser, and upkeep, so think carefully about how much lawn you actually need and use it only where it is truly necessary.

Use mulching to assist your goals

Mulches to reduce evaporation, delay erosion, and assist in avoiding soil temperature swings. Compost, bark or wood chips and straw are all excellent mulches. Mulch has the extra benefit of decaying and so enriching the soil over time. 

Read more about mulching techniques.

Choose your plants appropriately

Divide your garden into three irrigation zones and organise your plants accordingly. Do some research and pick your plants wisely.

No matter your gardening goals, there are always exciting DIY garden ideas you can try to meet them. If you’re searching for in-person inspiration, visit our Garden Show 2023. 

Have you tried any of these ideas before? Let us know on Facebook. We love to see your gardens!