No question: a garden takes a lot of work. Sometimes so much so that you don't even get around to finally inaugurating the beautiful new terrace. Instead, there is always something to be done: the flowers need to be watered, the weeds need to be pulled out again and these cheeky horned violets have recently started appearing on every corner of the garden. So that you can relax, we have put together the best tips for easy-care flower beds for you.
How to design easy-care flower beds?
Easy-care flower beds are created by selecting suitable perennials that suit the location and soil conditions and are as native as possible. Weed control, ground-covering plants or mulches help prevent weeds, and a natural gardening approach reduces maintenance.
Less care required through clever choice of perennials
An easy-care perennial garden starts with selecting the right plants; after all, some plants require significantly more attention than others. If you don't want to work much in the flowerbed, but just plant it and then enjoy it, you should choose the perennials based on these criteria:
- suitable for the location: sunny, partially shaded or shady
- suitable to the soil conditions: sandy-lean, humus or loamy
- native perennials require less care than exotics
- Perennial, long-lasting perennials prefer annual summer flowers
- choosing permanent blooming perennials
Furthermore, you should limit yourself to a few species, which not only like to bloom lushly, but above all are allowed to grow luxuriantly.
Keep flower bed free of weeds
This also has the advantage that fewer weeds grow: where hydrangeas etc. spread, orach, groundweed, dandelions and other weeds simply no longer find room to grow. Ground-covering perennials also quickly overgrow the flower bed with a carpet of flowers. They easily displace any unwanted herb. If you don't want to use sprawling or ground-covering perennials - for example because the flower bed is too small for them - instead, use a light and air-permeable weed fleece (€19.00 on Amazon) or mulch the bed with bark mulch. Rock or gravel gardens, once created, basically require little attention.
Just let nature take its course
Probably the easiest tip to follow for a low-maintenance flower bed is probably this: Just sit back, relax in your deck chair and let the garden be a garden. The world will not end if the leaves are not raked (on the contrary, autumn leaves are valuable winter protection and good fertilizer!) or the horned violets diligently reproduce themselves. A naturally designed garden may not seem “tidy”, but it offers many living creatures an important habitat, plenty of food and allows its owner to sit back and relax in comfort.
Tip
If you want to do as little work as possible, avoid sensitive and non-frost-hardy perennials such as dahlias, whose tubers have to be dug up every autumn and replanted in spring.
