If you are currently a gardener or thinking about starting a garden for the first time, you need to accept, there will always be triumphs and failures.  First, you can have the best-laid plan in the world but that does not always mean things will go perfectly to the schedule of that plan.

For example, you might have a great idea of planting ornamental grass along a water pond in your yard but little did you know that the kids you hired to mow the lawn would cut it down, thinking it was a part of the normal grass.  This kind of stuff happens all the time.  Perhaps you plan to plant new perennials along one side of your house but you had no idea there was going to be an early frost, causing everything to die.

With gardening, you will have tons of triumphs such as getting an exotic to grow, successfully transplanting plants from one location to another, or growing the biggest and best tomatoes on the block but along with all the great things in a garden, there will be failures as well, some you can control, and some you simply can do nothing about.

For this reason, it is important to understand the plants you buy and then pay attention to the zone in which they should be planted.  This way, when you purchase plants and flowers, you can choose the type that will do best in the area where you live so that you have many more successes than failures.

For example, you might be at your local nursery and spot a gorgeous rose bush but you find that it is a rare species, requiring tons of attention.  Now if you are home all day and do not mind working on that one plant often along with feeding it special foods, then you might do well.  However, if you were like most people, this just is not feasible.  Therefore, instead of choosing the more difficult and persnickety plant, choose a different rose species that is just as beautiful but does not have the same needy characteristics.

The same is true for the types of pots, containers, and even equipment you use.  In this case, you might have pruners that you have used on a plant that has a disease.  You put the tool away, and then a week later, pull it out to use on another plant.  Before you know it, the second plant is now diseased.  The reason is that the pruners were not sterilized from one plant to another.  Sadly, what could have been a triumph of having newly pruned plants turned to a failure by not taking a very quick and simple step.