How Do You Build A Low-Maintenance Garden?

To build a low maintenance garden, there are only three key elements to keep in mind. And by following this guide, you can easily get started with less confusion.

Our experienced landscape designers, moreover, will share with you extra tips as well as things to avoid when building one on your own. Keep reading!

How To Build A Low-maintenance Garden?

Know Your Site

Whether you intend to build an outdoor or indoor garden, it’s essential to understand the soil type, sun exposure, and weather conditions of your area. This helps you choose the right plants that can thrive happily there as well as save your money on buying the wrong ones.

Here are some hints for you:

• On a hot slope, choose drought-tolerance plants

• In damp soils, choose big-lovers

• Under trees or house roof, choose shade-loving plants

If you have some options of free space for building a garden, consider both convenience and the surrounding wildlife.

Your garden could become a small party for squirrels and veggie-loving critters if they are in your neighborhoods. In this case, consider growing your garden indoors or near your house.

If you already have some favorite plants on your wish-list, select the most suitable space to grow them.

For example, if you love to plant leafy green vegetables, look for an area receiving an equal amount of shade and sunlight during the day.

For fruiting veggies like peppers and tomatoes, a sunny spot is perfect.

To choose which area is best for your plants, aside from considering the amount of sun and rain, remember to test the soil to determine nutrient levels. From there, you’ll get the right plan on whether it needs renovating or not, and how to improve.

Choose The Right Plants

There are two solid rules when it comes to choosing plants for a low-maintenance garden:

The fewer the number of different plants you have, the better

Each type of plant requires a specific amount of sun, water, and nutrient levels.

It’s simple math that the more varieties of plants added to your garden, the more time you’ll have to spend to take care of them. So, keep the number down to a minimum and you will get plenty of free time to enjoy it.

Remember that you don’t have to always fill the bare ground with plants.

Try mixing with stones, mulch, and some artificial sculptures depending on your preference, taste, and budget.

Choose native plants

Selecting plants that grow naturally and happily in your area means you’ll spend less time caring for them.

If you intend to build a lawn, choose native grasses. Or, the best low-maintenance option is artificial grasses. You can expect most artificial grasses can last 10-20 years; the more casual usage, the longer they last.

Make sure to create a weed barrier as well as follow strictly the setup instructions if you choose artificial grasses.

In terms of native flowers, vegetables, or trees, if you have no idea of which plants to go for, ask for a consultation from an expert (which might require some extra fee from $100-$150/hour) or the seller at local plant stores.

Build An Appropriate Irrigation System

While the soil only requires fertilizing/renovating once or twice a year, watering is something that requires you to do more frequently to keep your garden healthy and beautiful.

Watering is commonly a daily task. And if doing it manually, you’ll have to wrangle the hose every day while this way is difficult to track the amount of watering and also inefficient in reducing water loss.

For ease and effortlessness, we highly recommend you set up an automated drip irrigation system.

This system not only helps you easily control the amount of water but also minimizes water loss by sending water directly to the soil.

You can install an automated drip irrigation system on your own or hire a professional technician to help you. If you want this system to be even more effortless, choose one with a timer.

Extra Tips And Tricks To Build A Low-maintenance Garden

Use largely potted plants: They’re low-maintenance and easy to maneuver if you want to set up greenery or floral background for a garden party.

Choose perennial plants, whether it’s an outdoor or indoor garden as you do not have to replace them every year.

If you’re going to build a rock garden, choose slabs and slate rather than gravel (since it needs to be raked and kept in place) and decking (since it requires regular cleaning)

Choose a really simple shape when mowing your lawn

Apply mulch to prevent weeds and water evaporation

Things To Avoid In Building A Low-Maintenance Garden

Below are some big no-no’s that you should keep in mind to avoid when building a low-maintenance garden:

Not select plants that are also favorite foods of snails or harmful bugs

Not stain or paint your garden furniture or fence as it requires you to paint these items over and over again

Not choose plants that require artificial support: Any plants that easily grow out of control and tricky to maintain should be on your blacklist.

Conclusion

Achieving a low-maintenance garden might require you to spend some time and effort in the first steps. But that’s worth it! Hopefully, our hard work has helped you find out the best ways to build a low-maintenance garden.

If you have any questions, kindly let us know and we’ll answer them as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!