Better Wiccan Gardens: An Affordable Witch's Guide - Craft of Wicca (2024)

It’s that time of the year again. Spring! That means planting season for your Wiccan garden. This is a witch’s guide to an affordable garden.

I love this part of my practice. There’s nothing quite like fresh herbs, flowers, scents, and even a place to perform rituals and magic.

If you’ve never done this before, this is the perfect article for you. We’ll talk about the basics so you can keep it simple.

I’ll also dig into some more advanced planning, scheduling, and design considerations.

What is a Wiccan Garden?

A witch’s garden is a place where witches can grow their own herbs, flowers, and vegetables. It can also be a place to store tools and supplies, or to perform rituals.

A witch’s garden can contain all the things you need to use in your spells and rituals. It can provide healing plants to cure small problems naturally. The garden can also grow produce that can be used in kitchen spells. A witch’s garden is a great tool that can heal, protect, and provide for you magically and physically.

It can be a great way to grow your Wiccan connection to nature.

Simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Let’s get on to some ideas.

Wiccan Garden Design

Let me just say that this doesn’t have to be complicated.

In my first year of having a garden, I merely did a single row of three. They were above ground, so I didn’t even need to clear an area in the yard.

(Click the picture for more information).

I think starting small like this is a great first step. It lets you see if you enjoy it before making a huge time or monetary investment.

That being said, I personally find planting directly into the earth is a rewarding experience. It gives you a chance to directly connect with soil and Earth as an element in a way that doesn’t come up at other times of the year.

The Right Location for a Witch’s Garden

Choosing the right location for your Wiccan garden can be a daunting task. You want to find a spot that is both private and accessible but also has room for your plants and tools. Here are some tips to help you choose the right location:

First, consider your needs. Do you want a small garden or a large one? Do you want to grow vegetables or flowers?

Second, think about your space. Do you have a lot of room or a little bit of space? Are there any trees or other plants in the area that you need to avoid?

Unless you live on a large plot of land, you probably won’t have many choices. Remember, you can even do this inside if you live in a city. Having your interior Wiccan garden nearby your altar can be quite nice and convenient.

Sections of a Wiccan Garden

The ways to design and divide up your garden are practically endless.

Here are four ideas to get you started:

1. By type
2. By element
3. Other aesthetic reasons
4. By astrological sign

Type is easy. Divide the garden up into three (or more sections). You can do clear markings with stones or twine, but you don’t have to.

Then put herbs in one section, flowers in another, and anything else in the last (vegetables, shrubs, or even trees, for instance).

I’ll leave any more specifics up to you since this is the least interesting of the choices. In the next part of the article, we’ll cover how to handle the other sectioning of a Wiccan garden.

Types of Wiccan Gardens

There are many types of Wiccan gardens including elemental gardens, herb gardens, and astrological gardens. Each type emphasizes the type of magick the witch will focus on.

Elemental Garden

The way I tend to do it now is to organize by element. Since each element is associated with a direction, it even gives you a natural way to divide the garden into four regions.

My garden is a box shape, and I just put stones in an X shape to make the clear north, east, south, and west divisions.

This way I can quickly grab whatever I need and be sure I’ve gotten something associated with the right element.

In the north are earth herbs. I technically only do comfrey (it doesn’t dry well, so fresh is best!) now, but find any good list of elemental herbs for more ideas. I stick radishes in the north part, too.

In the east, I do air herbs: lavender, parsley, and sage. In the south, I do fire: basil, cilantro, and rosemary. In the west, I do water: chamomile, thyme, and a wild rose bush.

I want to try cinnamon someday, but I think that’s more of a year-round indoor tree.

My choices are pretty standard, and I hope to brave some experimentation this year. I’ll keep you posted if I try something exciting.

Aesthetics

You could also let aesthetics guide your garden. It doesn’t have to be like an organized filing cabinet.

Simple things can make all the difference, like making patterns with colored flowers. You could even arrange everything by color.

I’ve seen other people divide it up into a pentagram. Let your imagination run wild with this!

Wiccan Herb Garden

Ah, the classic debate: herbs every witch should grow. In my mind, there are two good answers to this.

First, grow whatever you use the most. It will be more efficient, cheaper, convenient, and fresher than ordering online or going to a store.

But if you have easy access to those ones, I’d argue it’s more important to grow herbs that are hard to find.

The last philosophy is to pick only herbs you don’t use.

What? I know that sounds crazy, but here’s why. If you grow them, you’ll be more likely to use them!

It’s always good to get out of your comfort zone and experiment with new things. Learning to use new herbs will help you grow as a Wiccan and will expand your craft in all sorts of ways.

It’s great fun to use your garden to push yourself in these ways.

Now, maybe you came here for guidance, and none of that helped. Here’s a good starter collection. These are used in a wide variety of places, are easy to find, and aren’t finicky to take care of:

(Click the picture to go to the collection).

I’m particularly fond of the lavender, mint, parsley, sage, and thyme. For instance, you can make a fresh sage smudge stick for purification rituals.

An Astrological Garden

There are many different types of gardens, including astrological gardens. These gardens are designed to reflect the astrological signs of the planets that are in the sky at the time of planting.

Think about what kind of astrological sign your plants will be associated with.

There are many different types of astrology, and each has its own specific meanings and associations. If you’re looking to create a garden that corresponds with your own personal astrological sign, it’s important to consider the plants that will be most compatible with your sign.

Here are some tips to help you choose plants that will work well for you:

• Aries: sunflowers, impatiens, and geraniums.
• Leo: lilies and roses.
• Sagittarius: plants that grow in dry, sandy soil like agaves, cacti, and yuccas.
• Taurus: succulents and philodendrons.
• Virgo: Chrysanthemum, lavender, and the yarrow.
• Capricorn: daffodil, lily, iris, and forget-me-not.
• Gemini: tulips and daffodils.
• Libra: chamomile, lavender, and rosemary.
• Aquarius: daisy and sunflower.
• Cancer: anthurium, thyme, and oregano.
• Scorpio: iris and ferns.
• Pisces: lotus and water lilies.

Garden Scheduling Concerns

First off, let’s talk about the actual process of planting these things into a Wiccan garden. This can be confusing if you’ve never done it before.

Starting from seed is the hardest method and takes the longest. But it’s also the cheapest and most convenient because you can just order seed packets online.

If you start from seed, I highly recommend sprouting them first. Planting a seed directly in the ground will work (it’s probably what the packet says to do).

But this can take six weeks or more to see something come up. Then you should cull the plants. You’ll put in more seeds than you want since they won’t all germinate. And then they’ll crowd each other if you don’t pull out the excess ones.

If you sprout the seeds first, they’ll come up within a few days, and you can space them properly the first time. This is because the sprouted seeds are the ones that germinated.

This is so much simpler than it sounds!

Just space the seeds out about an inch apart on a moist paper towel. Carefully roll it up and put it in an unsealed plastic bag.

Check every day for mold. If they all seem to get moldy, your paper towel is too wet. It should be minimal dampness. Throw out moldy ones and make sure they stay damp.

Once they start to sprout, you can plant them as long as the temperature/season is correct.

Seasons and Temperature

You can be a bit more precise about when everything goes into the ground if you start with a planter.

These you’ll need to find at an actual greenhouse or garden supply store. That means you’ll probably be more limited in your options.

Most things can go in as long as it won’t frost at night. But since everything is different, you’ll want to look at the packaging of seeds or the little paper identifier on a planter for proper temperature and timing.

Other Care Tips for your Wiccan Garden

When you first start your garden, you may be overwhelmed with the prospect of planting everything yourself. Don’t be!

There are plenty of excellent, affordable garden books available that will walk you through the basics of creating a garden that pleases the eye and benefits your plants. Here are a few tips to help you get started:

• Choose a location that receives plenty of sunlight and has fertile soil.
• Plant a variety of plants, including flowers, vegetables, and herbs.
• Mulch your plants to help them conserve moisture and ward off pests.
• Water frequently. Use a sprinkler on a timer if you’re prone to forget.

A Witch’s Garden Blessing

Once you’ve settled on the Wiccan garden design and gotten everything in the ground, you’ll want to do a short blessing.

Here’s the one I use.

I sit directly on the ground in front of the garden at sunset. Take a handful of dirt from the garden (don’t grab a seed by accident).

Feel the energy from the Earth below and channel it into the dirt.

Say:

Mother Goddess,
I call upon with devotion
Endow love upon this dirt
Peace, growth, and emotion

Bless these plants
As they rise to the sky
I call upon you to grant
Sprouts the ability to multiply.

Release the stored energy into the dirt and sprinkle it over the garden.

Make sure to visualize clearly the growth and prosperity.

Good luck, and have fun with it!

Further reading about tools in Wicca

• Choosing an Athame
• Make Incense from Kitchen Scraps
• Charm Bag Recipes
• Incense Holders
• Types of Incense
• Wiccan herbs and herbal magic
• Lithomancy stones
• Making witch bells
• Stones for Protection: 8 Protective Crystals
• Magical Tools in Wicca: A Guide
• Make a Wand