Creating A Low-Maintenance, Yet Beautiful Garden

Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.

The garden is, for many people, one of the most important parts of the home. It might be where you spend most of your time in summer, or you might even be a keen gardener who loves to make use of it all year round. Even if you don’t get out in it much, it has an impact on the look of the whole home, and for that reason alone it is something that you are going to want to look after.

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But many people struggle to give enough time and attention to their gardens, with the result being that it ends up looking dilapidated and uncared for. A big part of the problem is that it can be a lot of hard work to keep up with a garden’s care. However, there are things you can do, and in this post we are going to check out some of the ways you can create a low-maintenance garden which is still beautiful.

Swap Out The Lawn

One of the parts of the garden that takes up most of your time and energy is the lawn. Everyone who has had to look after a lawn will know full well just how frustrating it can be to try and take care of it, and just how much work it really does take. You will be needing to mow it every six weeks at least, feed it regularly, and ensure that it is generally looking healthy. If there are any corners that get too wet, you might have a carpet of moss which is then its own entire problem to deal with. The whole thing can be a headache.

However, a lawn can look beautiful, so if you still want to keep that look but you don’t want the hard work of caring for it, consider simply swapping it out for an artificial lawn. These days you can get some pretty beautiful artificial grass, and the beauty of that is that it looks just like real grass but you don’t have to do anything about it to look after it. With fake grass, you can have the lawn effect without any of the work.

If you simply want to get rid of the lawn entirely, then you could consider laying down a patio, or gravel, or even a different kind of lawn which takes less work – such as one made from corsica mint.

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Use Shrubs

If you are keen on low maintenance, one of the things you should consider is using hardy perennials to help create the shape and structure of the place. That will generally mean that you use shrubs and similar plants to mark out corners and other shapes that you want to have, and in so doing you have a garden which is going to require much less work to look after. Shrubs do not need watering once they are established, as the natural amount of rainwater should be plenty, and nor do you need to do anything else with them except for an annual pruning. That doesn’t take long, and it’s the only work you will need to do.

Speed Up Edging

If you want your garden to look great, you are often going to have to look after the edges between beds, lawns, patios and other areas. If you do this by hand, it is always going to take a long time, but fortunately you don’t have to do it that way at all. These days, there are a range of edging solutions that you can use if you want to speed up your edging, and you will find that this is going to make everything in the process so much easier when you are trying to keep the garden tidy. It’s amazing what a difference the edges make to the overall look of the garden, so this is something to bear in mind.

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Good Foundation

If you have a good foundation in the garden, you will find that most other tasks you carry out are going to be a lot easier and simpler. There are many options available to you for this, so it’s something that you can absolutely always focus on. But the important thing is that you are working on this before anything else. This is especially important and especially possible when you are starting a new garden from scratch, so that is something that you might want to think about in those cases. But even if you are not, you can work back to the foundation any time and it will save you a lot of hassle later on. Be sure to choose a foundation stone that you are happy to work with, and which provides good support.

Compartmentalise The Planting Spaces

You might well have a number of areas for planting things that you want to use, and by utilising them properly you could make the whole process of gardening so much easier. One of the best ways to do this is to compartmentalise the planting spaces, so you know you have one kind of plant in one area and another in another area. Although this means that there is less variety in each section, it will make it easier to properly care for your plants, as you know that all of the plants in a particular area need pretty much the same kind of care.

This is an easy thing to set up, and easy to continue with, so make sure that you are considering this. And remember that it doesn’t mean you can’t still make the plants and the garden as a whole look varied and beautiful – of course you can, and you should find that this is even easier to keep on top of if anything. All in all, this is one of the easiest ways to make gardening so much easier to work with.

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Using Pots

If you have a desire to have many plants, but you are struggling to contain them all in the space, or you simply want to make sure that they are easier to move around and rearrange, then the simple solution is to use pots as much as you can. This is often a solution in those gardens which do not have any soil or actual ground to plant plants in, but even if you do it can be useful as a way of making everything just that little bit easier. If you have enough large pots, you can simply plant your plants in those and it’s a lot easier to get water and nutrients to the roots – while also meaning that you can try out many different arrangements in a short space of time.

The other thing with using pots is that you can decorate the garden further by focusing on which pots you use specifically. Going for those with designs or colours that you love can in itself be a way to further improve the look of the garden. All of this achieves a beautiful effect without you having to worry about the maintenance of plants in the ground.

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Use Only Native Plants

One thing that is always going to help you is if you make a point of using only native plants. That’s because native plants are easier to look after, as they are meant to grow in the area you are in. You will need to look after them so much less, and they should just naturally thrive and grow and be healthy forever without much interference. If you can fill your garden with such plants, you are going to have a beautiful and varied garden without having to be out there all the time watering and feeding the plants. What’s more, you will also be helping the local ecosystem to be healthy too.

Consider Paving

If you want to make everything so much easier and simpler, you should also consider the possibility of using paving slabs across the garden. If you have a smaller garden, this can work very well, and it is something that you can have done very quickly indeed. The great thing about paving is that you can lay it down, keep it clean with the occasional squirt of water, and other than that you don’t need to really do anything at all. Puts some pots on it with plants in and you are going to have a beautiful garden without the fuss and trouble.

Choose Long-Lasting Combinations
Some plants work very well together, because they are all perennials and they look great together, and they happen to enjoy the same kinds of conditions. There are even some combinations of plants who help each other with nutrients in the soil. If you can choose some long-lasting combinations of plants, you are going to find them a lot easier to look after with much less work, and the garden as a whole is going to be so much more beautiful as well. This is one of the easiest ways to create a low-maintenance garden, so it’s worth considering.

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