A beautiful garden provides respite from your busy day-to-day tasks. And although you may think that keeping your garden lush can seem daunting, there are ways to achieve a stunning garden that doesn’t need extreme care. Believe it or not, a beautiful garden does not always mean it’s high maintenance. To give you some ideas, we’ve put together some low-maintenance garden ideas that you can try.
Why is Garden Maintenance Important?
A well-maintained garden keeps your outdoor space clean, safe, presentable, and refreshing. Most of all, it keeps your property appealing, which is vital for giving a good impression to your guests and neighbours. As you keep your garden presentable, you will also be more likely to enjoy being in it.
Then again, not everyone has the time for proper garden maintenance. With this, you are left with a few options. You can either hire a landscaper to take care of the job for you or opt for a low-maintenance garden. Let’s talk about the second option first.
Tips for Easy-Care Gardens
We all lead busy lives, and we understand that not everyone has the time for lengthy gardening jobs. But with a few tips mixed with a dash of creativity, you’re well on your way to having your very own oasis at home. If all else fails, you can always call for a professional landscape company to breathe life into your garden.
Here’s how you can create beautiful, low-maintenance gardens at home:
Plan Your Garden Carefully
A well-planned garden becomes efficient and almost self-sufficient. Of course, you will still need to take care of its maintenance needs. But if your garden has the right mix of plants and the most suitable arrangements, it will thrive and take care of itself for the most part.
For instance, a garden will have sunny and shady parts depending on the layout, and you will need to choose appropriate plants for it. Some plants require more water than others, while some prefer sunnier or shadier parts. Once you have selected your plants, group ones with similar needs and place them in the right areas.
By plants in their ideal environment, you will significantly reduce the amount of work you need to dedicate to each plant. You will just need to check on them from time to time.
Use Native Plants
Native plants require the least maintenance when planted in their local environment. After all, they won’t need to adjust to sudden changes, and you won’t have to mimic or recreate their preferred habitat.
Australia has an abundance of beautiful native plants that you can choose from. Visit your local plant nurseries or landscaping shops and enquire which native plants are in your area. From there, you can start selecting the best plants for your easy-maintenance garden.
Mow Your Lawn Wisely
Always cut the grass at its tallest possible setting when mowing your lawn. Not only does this keep your grass looking manicured, but it also helps to provide shade to your turf while preventing weeds from growing. By keeping the grass blades longer, the grass can photosynthesise better, making its roots grow deeper and more resistant to drought.
Doing this will result in less work since your lawn can care for itself better. You can also skip bagging the grass clippings and leave them in your yard since they can work as compost and fertiliser for the freshly mowed grass.
Add Colour
Grass and shrubs already require minimal maintenance. So, brighten your lawn and add colour by planting a few colourful flowers in strategic areas in your garden. Doing this helps to break the monotonous greenery and create focal points. As usual, choose native flowering plants to keep your garden low maintenance.
Clean up to Keep Pests Away
If you want to avoid attracting pests and causing plant diseases, remove unwanted plant debris and weeds in your garden. Doing regular cleanups now and then is infinitely better than dealing with infestations that require more time, effort, and money to remove effectively. Remember, preemptive actions ensure that you will have less work in the future.
Low-Maintenance Landscaping Ideas to Inspire Your Designs
Less Grass, More Hardscapes
A lush, green lawn is undoubtedly stunning, but it also comes with time-consuming responsibilities. But, there’s no landscaping law stating that a sprawling lawn is required to make an outdoor space beautiful. Instead, you can minimise greenery and add more hardscapes that are easy to clean and maintain.
Doing this also reduces ongoing costs, such as mulch, fertiliser, mowing, and weeding. Low maintenance hardscapes include:
- Paving
- Artificial Turf
- Decking
- Garden Beds
- Decorative Toppings and Screenings
Opt for a Natural Look
A garden or lawn doesn’t always have to look manicured. Embrace unruliness and try soft, meadow-style planting by opting for a wilder touch. This style also works well if you love flowers but don’t have time for constant weeding and pest control. Let your garden borders thrive with a jumble of hardy meadow blossoms and grasses.
You can do this by scattering handfuls of meadow-mix annuals into the wilder areas of your plot and expect a colourful summer display. You can also choose easy-care perennials and just cut them back when the flowering season ends.
Make Textures Work for You
As mentioned earlier, hardscapes require much less maintenance compared to softscapes. But that doesn’t mean you should stick to one type of material. Mix and match your preferred paving, fencing, and decking designs to create a sleek contrast with luscious plants.
For instance, you can choose stone paving and provide contrast with a wooden deck. You can also add easy-to-maintain plant accents here and there to tie the design together.
Use Garden Beds
Raising your garden beds will ultimately make planting, weeding, and watering easier since the height and width of the beds can be adjusted to suit your preferences. Doing this also creates a beautiful contrast in the elements of your landscaping design.
Raised beds are great for sloping gardens since you can create accessible tiers that you can customise to include retaining walls, steps, and seating for more enjoyable viewing. Most garden beds are also built to help owners enjoy a maintenance-free garden so that you can enjoy them to your heart’s content without too much effort.
Opt for Container Planting for Small Spaces
If you don’t have enough space for planting, you can use patio pots, window boxes, and hanging baskets to enjoy your greenery. You can even grow vegetables in your pots and use an assortment of pot colours to transform your outdoor space. Just prune and water your plants occasionally to keep them healthy.
Container planting also isn’t limited to small spaces. You can do this regardless of the size of your garden. Put your plants in pots if you want to keep them easy to maintain since you don’t have to keep them in check at all times.
Create Pathways
Installing pavers in your garden is a great way to add more beauty and function to your garden. Apart from having fewer plants to care for, you can avoid damaging your lawn by lessening foot traffic on the grass. You can use the pathways to explore your garden safely instead.
You can choose from brick, exposed aggregate concrete, granite, and limestone materials. There are also different patterns and designs to complement your garden.
Lessen Your Plant Variety
Do you prefer a uniform look over the chaotic beauty of diverse plant life? If so, you can choose one plant variety and plant it en masse all over your garden. Doing so can create a gorgeous visual effect and give your garden a more modern look.
Taking care of the plants will also become easier since you only need to apply the same techniques repeatedly. By choosing lesser varieties that have similar needs, you can lessen maintenance even more.
Plant More Shrubs instead of Flower Borders
Flower beds are beautiful, but they tend to be high maintenance. Replace them with shrubs and hedges instead. Choose hardy evergreen shrubs that will look good throughout the year. Besides being easier to plant, they add lovely texture and capture interest without much effort.
Choose Easy-Care Landscaping at Green Oasis
At Green Oasis Landscaping, we aim to make landscaping easier for you. That includes providing low-maintenance options for your garden designs. Then again, if you prefer a more luxurious garden but don’t have the time to take care of it, we can do that for you. Aside from providing professional garden landscaping in Perth, we also care for your garden’s maintenance needs.
We are experts with over 40 years of combined experience in the Australian landscaping and construction industries. With that, you can rest assured that your garden is in good hands.
What Can We Do?
We provide a wide range of landscaping services that you can enjoy. We do everything from creating landscape designs to paving, decking, building retaining walls and garden beds, and installing outdoor electrical systems.
Essentially, we have everything you need in a garden. With our diverse services, we can create a low-maintenance garden that you can enjoy for years.
Get in Touch
Were you inspired by some of the low-maintenance garden ideas on this blog? Build your own and start by calling us today to start planning a garden design that brings out the best in your property. We accommodate projects of all sizes for residential and commercial clients. Call us today.