For some, gardening is a hobby. People enjoy spending their days in their garden, maintaining plants, cutting grass and making sure everything is perfect. For others, gardening is a chore, maybe you don’t have the time or maybe you just don’t like getting your hands dirty and would rather spend your time enjoying it than working in it.
If the second group of people sounds like you, don’t worry, you can still make your outside space work for you, without you having to do the work.
Below are 5 tips on how you can achieve a low maintenance garden that you can still enjoy:
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Lawn Maintenance
Lawns need work. They need regular cutting, feeding and weeding. For a truly low maintenance lawn, you could just remove it and replace it with paving or deck. Or if you like the look of a lawn, you could always install artificial grass. It doesn’t need cutting or feeding and will look good all year round.
However if you still want a lawn, make it a simple shape and a manageable size so when it comes to cutting and maintaining your lawn, it can be done in minutes.
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Plant Selection
When it comes to plants, make sure you are choosing plants that are low maintenance. Conifers, shrubs, perennials and grasses can all add colour and texture to your garden without creating tonnes of work for you. If you need help, ask at your local garden centre about your options.
If you’re looking for a low maintenance garden, avoid plants such as bedding plants, vegetables, climbers and plants that need staking. These all need plenty of looking after. Also avoid plants that are going to grow too big for your garden as you will spend most of the time trimming them down.
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Landscaping
We’ve already discussed the lawn, but what about everything else. Gardens can be a perfect space to both relax and entertaining. You might want to look into hardscaping. This basically means using materials such as paving or decking as part of your garden landscape. Although these will need maintenance, it will be on a yearly basis. The more hardscaping you have in your garden, the less maintenance you will have to do. However some will be less maintenance than others. Gravel and decking will require more maintenance than paving will for example.
Having a patio or a deck not only creates less work for you, but it can also be used to create a feature or centrepiece in your garden as well as providing a great place for an outdoor seating area.
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Fences and Hedges
For a low maintenance garden, avoid hedges. They will need trimming and shaping and sometimes weeding. Instead opt for a fence or a wall. These will need barely any maintenance in comparison. For fences make sure you choose a quality hard wood that doesn’t need staining and will last a long time. If you stain or paint your fence you will need to keep up to it and it will need redoing again and again. Initially, installing a fence or a wall will seem like a big job, but in the long run, it will mean much less work for you to maintain and will improve your kerb appeal.
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Garden Furniture
A garden is more than just plants. One of the main benefits of having a garden is that it can double up as a space in which you can relax and entertain family and friends. Having an outdoor seating area will not only boost your property’s appeal, it also provides a relaxing space for you to enjoy.
When choosing your outdoor furniture, it is important to consider material. You need to choose a material that is both water proof an durable. Synthetic resin and cast-aluminium furniture will require less maintenance than wood furniture, a simple wipe it a cloth will do the job, however wood furniture will only really need treating on an annual basis. Either way, whichever furniture you chose make sure you can either cover it up or store it away to protect it over the winter months.
No matter what your reason for wanting a low maintenance garden, with a few changes you can begin to use the time in your garden for relaxing rather than working. Just because a garden is low maintenance, it doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful and full of colour, it just means you have to be a little more savvy when it comes to your design decisions. If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask people in the know.
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