Low Maintenance Garden Ideas
The real truth is this: Those who say they have little to no time to spend in their garden are most likely to love entertaining and relaxing outdoors just as much as their infatuated green thumb counterparts.
Well, my lazy gardeners in crime, lets learn to create the most enviable, easy garden there is with low maintenance landscaping and simple garden ideas, so we can spend less time caring for our garden and more time in it.
Here’s some great low maintenance garden ideas for the time poor individuals.
Perennials
Perennial flowers, such as lavender, will fill your garden with a burst of colour year after year without you so much as lifting a finger, unlike annuals, which you will have to replace every season.
They work to give your garden more permanence in garden beds, window boxes and containers.
Organic mulch
Mulch is a good friend of the low maintenance garden. It brings two advantages – less weeding and less watering.
By putting down a nice thick layer of mulch prevents weeds but also means your garden will need less watering as the water won’t evaporate from soil as quickly.
Stone mulch
Ok so you might be really really time poor and even an even better option, let’s take it one better than mulch and fill your garden beds with stones.
A stone mulch, or non-organic mulch, is not going to break down and need to be replaced. You will however need to invest in a blower to help clear away some of the dry leaves etc lying around.
Low-key lawns
A lawn is a high maintenance whichever way you look at it, however, some grasses suit low maintenance gardens better than others.
Sir Walter Bufflao
My all time favourite grass, A low maintenance grass, Sir Walter lawns are soft underfoot and incredibly easy to maintain.
Village Green – Kikuyu
Unlike other Kikuyu grass varieties which have agricultural Kikuyu as their origin, Village Green is a turf type kikuyu grass developed for Australian back yards, hard wearing and great for the whole family.
Astroturf
An alternative to grass, especially in smaller courtyards, is replacing the natural turf with artificial turf.
Even those lower maintenance lawns will still have to contend with weeds, especially during winter, and all astro turf needs is a little shake off every now and then to remove debris.
Hard landscaping
Instead of relying on flowers, introduce colour to your garden in your hard landscaping.
Easy garden ideas include painting a trellis or pavers, or even painting or whitewashing a brick wall. By involving colour in your hard landscaping this way, plants won’t be so integral to the colour scheme – and you won’t have to be so prudent in planting and pruning them.
Pots, pots, pots
Pots are not exactly lower maintenance from a watering point of view. However, they’re a whole lot easier to replace if you decide to change them. Just empty and replenish the soil, as opposed to digging out roots from a garden bed that have a strong foothold in the soil.
Natives
Filling your garden with more native plants will certainly assist with a low maintenance landscaping project. Because these varieties have evolved in our conditions, Australian natives require less watering and feeding than exotic plants.
Also, there’s an awful lot of choice – you can find native perennials, shrubs or trees in native varieties. Best bit: Most usually require only a light prune to keep their shape.
Slow & steady
If you’re after a low maintenance garden, slow and steady wins the race.
Avoid plants that grow vigorously, such as potato vines, and instead embrace slower growing varieties like succulents. Always read the plant label as you can find some slow growing varieties of popular plants, too.
Finally, avoid deciduous plants which are going to create a lot of leaf litter in autumn. The last thing you want to be doing is raking up leaves when you could be putting your feet up.