Family life can be pretty busy. Juggling children, work and the responsibilities both entail means we can be so busy that spending the weekend tending to our garden is the last thing we want to do. If this sounds like you, then you need some low-maintenance landscaping ideas.
Check out these low maintenance tips that will keep your garden looking nice with minimum effort.
Low Maintenance Landscaping Ideas
Choose your plants wisely
Labor-intensive plants are not ideal if you’re a busy bee. Try to the minimise high-maintenance plants you use in your garden. For example, whilst they look beautiful roses require a lot of water, fertilizer, and pesticides as well as skilled pruning to be their best.
We would recommend Camellias for low maintenance flowering colour with attractive glossy leaves.
Utilise open space - create an entertainment area
Don’t fill your garden with planted garden beds. Utilise open space to create an attractive gathering space for your family and guests to enjoy our Sydney summers.
Whether you use timber decking, paving, decorative stone or even grass, you’ll find creating an entertainment area will be a fabulous focal point for family life.
Mulch it up
Mulch helps to keep garden beds and other areas of your garden damp by trapping moisture. This can reduce the need for you to water your garden during our summer months. Additionally, mulch can also be the best weed deterrent, as it is harder for weeds to germinate and grow through the thick level of mulch. Avoid turning the soil because doing so brings dormant seeds to the surface which will only help them grow.
Xeriscaping is great!
Xeriscape is a sustainable method of gardening aimed at conserving water through creative landscaping. Selecting slow growing, drought tolerant varieties of plants creates a water-efficient garden. Generally these types of gardens are predominantly native plants, with an added side benefit of increasing local wildlife habitats. If well maintained, a xeriscape can use less than one-half of the water used in a typical garden.
Avoid the path
In order to avoid maintenance in your backyard, it is important to avoid having large beds of flowers and plants that will need an extensive weeding. Additionally, in order to have a low maintenance backyard, it is also useful to avoid having pathways that run through your backyard. Pathways usually need consistent weeding and trimming in order to keep them clear and looking good.
Try Drip Irrigation
Drip irrigation is a low-cost option for sprinklers. This is the best option if not all of your plants can survive with minimal watering. Some of the benefits you can get from this drip irrigation are: 1) they use 30 to 50 percent less water than other regular watering methods and 2) they improve growth because smaller amounts of water used over a long period of time give perfect growing conditions.
Select Native Plants
If you’ve noticed a bit of a theme to our tips to create a low maintenance garden, its to choose native plants. Native plants are designed to survive our local climate. To help make the best out of your garden space take note of the growing conditions in your backyard and choose plants particularly suited to them.
Place sun loving plants in the areas that get full sun for at least 6 hours a day. Plants that grow in full-shade conditions will do best on the south side of your house or under trees with dense leaves. Partial shade plants do good when they are placed on the east or west side of the home where they either get direct morning sun or afternoon sun but no midday sun.
Top local native plants include:
Bottlebrush (Callistemon spp.) is the low maintenance native plant with distinctive bright red flowers that bloom in spring and summer, proving alluring to bees and birds. A fast-growing shrub, Bottlebrush prefers well-draining soil and a full sun position. They look great as a hedge, screen plant or street tree.
Everlasting daisies Also called Paper Daisies, these perennials bloom in late spring to early autumn. A low-maintenance native flower, the colors range from white and pink to dark red, yellow-orange, blue, and mauve.
Use Drought-Tolerant Grass
Using a drought-tolerant grass species can help you reduce your water requirements significantly (as well as a brown lawn in Summer), as well as reduce your maintenance.
Buffalo Turf
Buffalo turf is one of Australia’s favorite lawn varieties. It is well known to be durable and easy to grow as well as very low maintenance. The Sir Walter variety is able to tolerate full sun as well as be shade tolerant. Buffalo grass requires less mowing than other turf varieties and also needs slightly less nitrogen.
Zoysia
Zoysia grasses such as Sir Grange are another very low in maintenance turf variety. This is mainly due to very slow growth patterns. Zoysia can withstand heat, cold, droughts and it is suitable for those tougher, weather conditions. It also requires minimal water and has a lower nitrogen requirement.
Bottom Line
You don’t have to invest a lot of time and energy to make your garden gorgeous. There are many low maintenance landscaping tips that will make your lawn beautiful. Remember, designing your garden to be a stress-free sanctuary will give you place to go to when life gets a little overwhelming.
Renovating Mums would like to say Thank You to Invision Landscaping for submitting their top tips for low maintenance landscaping.
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