When to use prendre soin de over s'occoup de

Just to expand the scope of Jim's explanation a bit:

There are many ways in French to express "taking care" of someone or something. The ones you hear most frequently are: 

se charger de qqc. -- s'occuper de qqc -- prendre soin de qqn.

These three expressions can all be translated by "taking care" in English, but in French they involve varying degrees of emotional involvement and are used in different circumstances.

Prendre soin de qqn. is often used in connection with someone's health, people or animals and can express "loving care". Of the three, it often (but not always) expresses some emotional involvement. Je prends soin du chat des voisins. -- I take care of the cat of the neighbors.

Se charger de qqc. is frequently heard in a professional context or when someone is accepting an order. It has the least emotional involvement. Mon assistant se chargera de cela. -- My assistant will take care of that. In English you could sometimes say "be in charge of" instead of "take care of"

S'occuper de qqc falls somewhere in the middle of the two.

With respect to your garden, you could use either of the three, but you'd be expressing three different kinds of "taking care" of your garden.

Je me charge de mon jardin. -- Je m'occupe de mon jardin. -- Je prends soin de mon jardin.

Hi Martin,

Subject to the input from one of the staff Francophone ladies  --  I can suggest:-

1) Je m'occupe de conserver mon jardin. (To take care of ...) Using s'occuper de ..

2) Je soigne mon Jardin. (To be attentive to / look after ...)  Using the transitive verb soigner.

Bonne continuation

Jim

Wow what incredible replies, thank you so much fellas