The self-sustaining garden will remain an illusion for the foreseeable future. With a little planning skills, you can create a blooming paradise that is easy to maintain. The secret of success lies in the right mix of undemanding plants, easy-care design elements and a good dose of composure.
How do you design a low-maintenance garden?
An easy-care garden can be created with a mixture of undemanding plants, weed fleece, ground cover, weed-repellent joint sand and gravel beds. Suitable plants include native perennials, bulbs, wild perennials, long-lasting flowering perennials, evergreens, low-maintenance ornamental grasses, and low-pruning ornamental trees.
Goodbye weeding – this is how it works
Patroling with a watering can every now and then or spreading compost every now and then doesn't deter a gardener. However, when stubborn weeds sprout incessantly, daily weeding is extremely nerve-racking. We therefore primarily associate an easy-care garden with a weed-free, green realm. If you are creating or designing a new garden, you should not miss the following options:
- Lay a stable weed fleece under topsoil and potting soil
- Plant beds with ground cover plants, such as cotoneaster (Cotoneaster dammeri) and periwinkle (Vinca minor)
- Pave paths and terraces with weed-repellent joint sand
- Create beds as gravel beds
If you combine a weed control fabric with a mole screen, your easy-care garden will be protected from mound-raising moles and voracious voles.
The best easy-care plants for the garden – a selection
Give preference to native perennials in the planting plan. Every autumn they retreat independently into the ground, survive the winter undamaged and appear in all their splendor the next spring, as if by magic. To provide scaffolding, combine ornamental trees that cannot be cut or can only be cut for visual reasons. The following selection introduces you to recommended plants for the easy-care garden:
- Bulb flowers for the spring garden, such as snowdrops (Galanthus) and crocuses (Crocus)
- Wild perennials, such as bluebells (Campanula carpatica) or bush anemones (Anemone nemorosa)
- Perennials with a long flowering period, such as cranesbill (Pelargonium) and coneflower (Echinacea)
- Evergreen flowering plants, such as rhododendron and firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea)
- Easy to care for ornamental grasses, such as diamond grass (Calamagrostis brachytricha) and mountain riding grass (Calamagrostis varia)
- Ornamental trees that require little pruning, such as Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) or ornamental cherry (Prunus)
In an easy-care garden, you don't have to do without lavish flower boxes. The time-consuming effort usually results from the daily cleaning of withered flowers. By simply planting self-cleaning balcony flowers, care is reduced to watering in dry conditions. We recommend hanging petunias and geraniums, which independently shed everything that has withered or faded.
Tip
Lawn is one of the most demanding components of a garden's care program. Weekly mowing is far from enough for a velvety green carpet. Only when you fertilize regularly, scarify, sand, lime and aerate at least once a year is the care complete. So consider a garden without lawn the next time you redesign your property.
