Gardening can be labour intensive, but making changes to the way you deal with watering, weeding and pruning, along with clever plant choices, can make your garden more low maintenance. You can make small changes, like swapping high maintenance plants like dahlias and roses, with easy long flowering perennials or evergreen shrubs. Or make a big change, like getting rid of your lawn and embracing a gravel garden.
The type of garden that is easiest to maintain is one where the plants are as self sufficient as possible, with less need for watering or deadheading, and there are simple plant displays that offer long lasting interest. You can also use mulch, such as bark chippings or gravel, to keep weeds down.
Whether you’re planning a new garden or making changes to an existing one, prioritise what you most enjoy, whether that’s veg gardening or planting up pots. Leave time for these activities and make the rest of your outdoor space easy and quick to manage. Here’s a few ideas of how to make your garden more low-maintenance.
Planning a low maintenance garden
Choose easy shrubs
Evergreen shrubs not only provide structure and winter interest in the garden, but they’re also a low maintenance plant. Choose shrubs that are slow growing and don’t need much pruning, such as abelias and pittosporum. Look also for shrubs that don’t need deadheading, such as fuchsias.
Buy vegetable plug plants
Sowing vegetables from seed is budget friendly, but it can take time, especially if you grow labour intensive vegetables like tomatoes, which need to be potted on several times. Save time by buying vegetable plug plants, which can be planted direct outdoors. For tender veg, wait until the danger of frosts is over. If you only need a few tomato or kale plants, for example, it can be much easier to buy a strip of plug plants.
Grow low-maintenance fruit
Fruit such as strawberries, rhubarb, gooseberries and currants provide a crop every year but need little attention after planting. Choose low maintenance fruit and you’ll get an easy harvest for very little effort. Strawberry plants may need replacing after three or four years, but otherwise they are easy to look after, while gooseberries and currants just need light pruning in winter.
Add easy access raised beds
If bending down is a problem or you are planning a garden for elderly gardeners, raised beds are a good option. This brings the soil level up to a more accessible height, making planting and weeding easier.
Choose large containers
Large pots will dry out more slowly than small ones, so you won’t have to water them as often. Make a focal point with a big container, using one or two plants that can stay in year round. This will cut down on the amount of seasonal planting you need to change.
Look for reliable plants
Choose reliable plants such as hardy geraniums or hebes that don’t need lots of attention to thrive. Look for plants with an RHS Award of Garden Merit, which is given to plants that perform well. Make sure you choose plants that suit the conditions in your garden. This will cut down on the amount of time you spend maintaining plants.
Mulch to reduce weeding
Lay a mulch around and between plants to suppress weeds. There’s a wide range of mulches that can help keep weeds at bay and they have the added benefit of retaining moisture in the soil. These include home-made garden compost, gravel and woodchips or bark. Organic mulches will also release nutrients over time and improve the structure of your soil.
Add ground cover
Using ground cover plants is another way to suppress weeds. Avoid leaving bare patches in your borders where weeds can establish and flourish. Low maintenance ground cover plants include Persicaria bistorta, which is quick to spread and also flowers for months, from April to August, or for shade, Ajuga reptans is a good pick.
Create a gravel garden
If you have limited time swap your lawn for a gravel garden – a great choice if you want low-maintenance landscaping. Lawns can be one of the most labour intensive parts of the garden, whereas drought tolerant plants in a gravel garden need little care once established. The gravel should also help to keep down weeds.
Be efficient with watering
Set up an automatic irrigation system for your containers and save time on watering, especially during summer when pots will need to be watered every day in hot weather. Irrigation systems can also be connected to a timer.
