This is a collaborative post.
Having a garden is a fantastic luxury. A place to relax when the weather is good, entertain friends or a safe playground for the kids. But the truth is, maintaining a nice garden takes an awful lot of hard work. You may not have the time or the inclination to maintain it.
So what are your options? You can pay a gardener to tend to it on a regular basis. By doing this you can have a beautiful garden but don’t have to spend any of your own free time on it. If you have the budget, that’s great, but a lot of people don’t.
You could just leave your garden to its own devices and over time it will become overgrown and unsightly. Or you can invest in a low maintenance garden and enjoy the best of both worlds.
Plan Your Low Maintenance Garden
By putting in a little time and money at the outset, you can have a beautiful garden that requires almost zero effort leaving you to spend your free time with your family and friends.
If you’re unsure of where to start, look into landscape designers who will be able to help you design the perfect garden for you.
Limit The Number Of Plants You Have
Reduce the amount of space you have for planting with either decking, paving or gravel. Choose only a few types of hardwearing, low maintenance plants.
Top Dress Flower Beds
Where you do have plants, put down an anti-weed membrane and place gravel or wood chippings over the soil in between plants to discourage weeds.
Decide If You Need A Lawn
For some people, a garden is a lawn, but they do require regular TLC to keep them looking good. If not having a lawn is a deal-breaker for you, consider installing artificial grass. The look and feel of artificial grass have improved massively over the past few years and don’t just look like a fluorescent green Subbuteo mat. It’s quite expensive but requires very little looking after.
If you decide you can live without a lawn then look at paving, decking or gravel to fill the space.
Leave Wooden Fences & Furniture Natural
If you paint your fences, flowerbeds and furniture a different colour, then at some point it will need repainting. So then you either need to repaint it or spend the next 10 years watching it slowly get worse. Keep the wood natural, or clear coat it for extra protection and it will last for years.
Install A Watering System
If you do have a lawn or planting, it’s going to need regular watering in the summer months. It doesn’t have to be a complicated or expensive system. You can hook up a very simple watering system to an outside tap which works on a timer.
Enjoy
Now that you have the perfect, low maintenance garden, use it. Relax, entertain, play with the kids, and never have to spend your weekend gardening.
