If you are not the sort of person who wants to spend ages in the garden having to perform maintenance, prune, and keep everything neat and tidy, then it is essential that you think about how you are going to create a low-maintenance garden.
By planning ahead, you can make sure that you don’t end up with the frustrating tasks of overgrowing plants and lots of maintenance that you simply don’t want to do. In the modern age, a lot of us have fast-paced lives and don’t want to spend all of our weekends making sure the yard doesn’t get out of control.
Limit Planting Space
One of the very worst things you can do if you want a low-maintenance yard is to create lots of demanding areas where you plant lots and then have to think about how you are going to keep it in good order.
It is nice to have a few areas where you can add some plants to create a bit of character, but there is no need to go over the top. As well as considering keeping these areas smaller, you can also think about how you might want to limit plants from growing too large. They tend to grow to their conditions, so if you plant them within pots they won’t have as much room to spread and become overgrown, which is the last thing you want for a low-maintenance garden.
Install Water Irrigation Systems
Irrigation systems can be a real timesaver when it comes to your garden. A proper irrigation system allows you to automate things like the watering of your plants and where the water is distributed around your yard, keeping the lawn in great condition, helping to keep the plants growing, and generally improving the condition of your yard. All of this, and you don’t have to spend any time at all watering your plants.
This totally reduces the need to spend lots of time out in the yard making sure everything is looked after. Irrigation systems don’t have to be expensive, either, and while you might think they are reserved for agricultural use, this isn’t the case at all. It is easy to get a system set up for your residential garden.
Choose Well-Suited Plants to Your Area
Generally speaking, the worse the plants are suited to the area where you live, and where they are being installed, the more work you are going to have to do to maintain them.
For instance, if you live in an area where you don’t get much rainfall at all, but you decide that you are going to install lots of plants that need a lot of water then you might end up having to do a lot of watering. Similarly, if you have a small garden but you choose plants that have a habit of growing quickly then you might find yourself constantly pruning them and cutting them back.
It is important to give this a bit of thought beforehand and to make sure you are buying the right sort of plant species to suit your space. There is so much information about whether a certain plant is suitable for your climate available online, and it doesn’t take much searching to find the right sort of plants for your garden.
Arrange Stone or Blocks for Landscaping Borders
Creating borders is a good way to segment your yard and keep it easier to maintain, but there are also some considerations about what the borders should be made out of.
Stone and blocks are amazing as they don’t require any maintenance. The most you might want to do is rinse them down if they start to get dirty or dusty. There’s really no specific guideline for how you segment your garden and how you create the borders but make sure you do so in a way that isn’t going to need too much maintenance.
A lot of people use wooden borders, but over time these can degrade, and while we think of them as permanent structures, most types of wood will eventually succumb to the elements and need treating or replacing.
Spread Mulch on Beds
Mulch is absolutely magic. If you aren’t using it then you definitely should be, and your plants will thank you.
Mulch holds onto moisture and nutrients that the plants need. By mixing it with compost or adding it directly to your plant beds then you can ensure that the water that does make it into your garden is maximized. If you have rainfall on a Monday, your plants may still be feeling the benefits long into the week.
This means that you have to spend less time on maintenance, with not as much need for watering. Mulch is inexpensive and though it doesn’t solve all of the issues in your garden it is one of the most simple and straightforward methods to reduce the maintenance required.
Conclusion
Technology continues to improve and makes it easier for us to plan and implement low-maintenance gardens. These are some of the main tips to improve the garden you have and make sure you aren’t going to have to spend one day a week out there pruning and trying to keep it in good order when you really don’t want to.
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