You might remember the meaning of the character 荒 with this easy mnemonic:
I used to be a pro at growing flowers (艹), but now I'm out of practice. I couldn't even open the flower pot lid (亠) without slashing (丿) myself with vines and messing up the line (丨) of seeds.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.