A garden takes work, no question: planting flowers, watering and fertilizing, cutting trees and perennials and, last but not least, pulling weeds. However, you can significantly reduce these activities by preventing weeds from growing in the first place and by choosing the right plants to keep maintenance work to a minimum. This article will show you how to do it.
How do I create an easy-care flower bed?
To create a low-maintenance flower bed, choose perennial, native plants that suit the location and soil conditions. Prefer ground cover, evergreen plants and plants with a long flowering period or low pruning requirements, such as cranesbill, coneflower or hosta.
Prevent weeds in the first place
Pulling weeds is probably one of the most unpopular activities in the garden - and one of those that you basically never end up doing. Root weeds in particular can cause a lot of trouble for the gardener, as they keep coming back and apparently simply cannot be killed. There are a few practical options to limit the growth of these unwanted bed residents:
- Apply weed control when creating the flower bed.
- Mulch the flowerbed, for example with bark mulch.
- Create a gravel or rock garden bed.
All of these methods prevent the weeds from reaching the surface in the first place. It also makes sense to carefully and deeply dig up the bed area before planting and to collect all roots and plant parts. Then cover the whole thing with an impermeable film for a few weeks, which will cause any plants underneath to die due to the lack of light.
The right choice of plants
Of course, there can't be a completely maintenance-free garden, but thanks to a clever selection of plants, your garden will green and bloom almost by itself.
Criteria for plant selection
However, to achieve this goal, you should apply the following criteria when selecting plants:
- Choose perennial plants.
- Annuals must be sown every year.
- Choose native plants.
- These are the best adapted and require little care.
- Exotic plants are often difficult to care for or require separate overwintering.
- Choose plants that suit the location and soil conditions.
- Prefer ground cover and other wide-growing plants.
- These cover a large part of the bed and look good all year round.
- Evergreen plants also make the flower bed appear attractive all year round.
- Choose plants that require little or no pruning.
Easy-care plants for the flowerbed
These flowers are particularly recommended for an easy-care flower bed:
- Flowering ground cover: carpet woodland stoneia, cranesbill
- Woods you don't have to prune: hazelnut, rhododendron, witch hazel, Chinese dogwood
- Perennials with a long flowering period: cranesbill, coneflower, coneflower, girl's eye, scabiosis, lady's mantle
- Especially long-lasting perennials: forest goat's beard. Hosta, Peony, Daylily
Tip
If you like roses but the care is too much for you, you can plant self-cleaning varieties such as 'Escimo' or 'Larissa'. Here the otherwise necessary summer pruning is omitted.