Low Maintenance Gardening Hacks
Take a back seat and check out our ideas for creating a beautiful, low maintenance garden.
1. A low maintenance garden requires simplicity
Avoid tender plants that require seasonal tasks such as lifting, winter wrapping, moving to a protected environmental, or seasonal propagation.
Plants such as hydrangea macrophylla, hostas, dianthus, hardy geraniums, and coral bells will all make excellent additions to your low maintenance garden, as they tend to be generally pest-free, and only require infrequent feeds with slow-release fertiliser or organic material top ups.
2. Let borders grow wild
A shift in trends has seen the more immaculate gardens being replaced with ‘jungle’ themed gardens. This style provides your garden with a more rugged, natural appeal, whilst requiring much less time for weeding and pest control too.
Letting your borders flourish with a mixture of hardy meadow blooms and grasses will not only give your garden that lazy oasis feel, but pollinators will love it too. Simply plant a selection of easy-care perennials, including salvias, echinacea, and achilleas, and let them blossom, requiring only a rough trim back at the end of the flowering season.
3. Never underestimate shrubs
All that time spent uprooting weeds can be saved by planting some hard-wearing shrubs. This is because shrubs are much easier to plant through weed-suppressing membranes, and they require much less frequent watering and upkeep.
Once planted, add a layer of mulch on top – bark and gravel will do the job. Shrubs thrive with very little human intervention. Plant native shrubs wherever possible in your garden, especially nearby fellow native plants including grasses and wildflowers, where they’ll bloom to enhance your garden's wilderness.
Shrubs have an abundance of benefits for your garden. As well as attracting bees, insects, butterflies and birds, their filtration of dust and pollutants will keep the air quality in your garden at healthier levels too.
4. Keep some grass growing
Experiment with lawn lengths - allow a section of your grass to be trimmed, and well-kept, whilst other sections grow wild to create that natural feel.
Not only does this free up your to-do list, it can also help promote local wildlife in your garden. Bees, butterflies, hedgehogs, frogs and insects need longer grass to thrive. By simply not mowing your lawn for up to one month, you can increase the abundance and diversity of bees in particular.
5. Appreciate the power of perennials
Perennials give your garden that exotic feel without hard work. Hardy geraniums are a fine example, flowering for long periods of time, requiring very little attention. They’re great for pollinators too, and some flower until the first frosts – providing long seasons of nectar and pollen.
Erigeron karvinskianus is another lovely low-maintenance plant that is becoming popular in drier gardens throughout the UK. Grow yours in well-drained soil in full sun and watch them bloom through long periods of summer – often from June right through to October. Fortunately, they seem to thrive when neglected and spread quickly to create low hedging, pretty features down the sides of stone steps, or tucked away in wall crevices.