Today’s Garden Ideas | Who Would Like A Maintenance Free Garden?

Who Would Like A Maintenance Free Garden?

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Nothing beats a beautiful well-tended garden with its perfectly trimmed bushes, weed free soil, and bright full blooms. However, if you are like me, you do not want to spend your entire weekend hedging, pruning, weeding, watering, fertilizing, deadheading and mulching. Yet, you still want a garden that is the envy of the neighborhood. If you are willing to put in a few hours of work one weekend you can have a glorious easy to care for garden with beautiful flowers and shrubs.

Designing Your Workless Garden

To begin, you want to choose flowers, grasses, shrubs and/or trees that are appropriate to the soil and sun requirements in your chosen garden area. Determine if your site is in full sun,

partial sun, or shade. Do not just take a glance at your garden area but check it several times a day. What may be sunny at 10:00am could be in complete shade by 2:00pm. Next examine your soil. Is it dry, sandy, rich, or clay-like? If you are not sure take a sample to your local nursery and ask a professional gardener to determine the soil content.

The next step is to clear your garden area of weeds, larger stones, roots etc. Turn compost into the soil so your garden will have a rich well-drained soil base. If you don’t have any compost, then good quality gardening soil from your local nursery will do.

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Before you go and purchase your plants you want to draw out a garden design. First draw a basic design on paper. Then go out to your garden and draw it out on the soil using a large stick. Be original and have fun with the design. Plant flowers in zig zag patterns or in triangles. Have the garden border curve instead of form a standard rectangular shape or shape your garden into the initial of your last name. Be silly, classical, romantic, or geometrical. Match your garden’s overall shape to your own personal taste.

Purchasing Your Plants

Time to visit the nursery and choose your shrubs and flowers. I strongly suggest you speak with your gardener and explain that you want maintenance free plants suitable to your garden. Let your gardener know how much sun the area gets and what type of soil you are working with. Also explain how you have prepped the soil and what type of compost you used. You might also want to bring a drawing of your design so your gardener can see the shape of the garden and help you choose plants that fit into your plan.

Once your get home set your plants out, still in their pots, where you are going to plant them to be sure you like your choices and they fit in with your garden design.

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I recently helped my friend Bonnie plant a sun-loving garden. She shaped her garden in an oval coming out from her backyard fence. Along the fence line we planned to plant 3 Boxwood shrubs. These shrubs can get up to 15 feet tall. With their dark green glossy leaves they really stood out nice against the pine fence. Boxwoods grow well in zones 6-9. Luckily we had placed the Boxwoods in pots along the fence before we planted. Bonnie decided the 3 Boxwoods were a bit monotonous. So we returned one and purchased some Fountain Grass to plant between the Boxwoods. Fountain Grass requires virtually no care. It grows in zones 5-10 and gets about 3 feet tall. It has beautiful brush-like seedheads when fully grown. Because we wanted some color against the fence we decided to plant some Canna Lilies on either side of the Boxwoods. Canna Lilies can get about 4 1/2 feet tall and are very hardy. They are grown as a perennial in the South and an annual in the North in zones 7-10. While we chose red, Canna Lilies come in orange and yellow too.

Our next step was to plant our next row of blooms. We wanted to bring the red from the Canna Lilies to the rest of the garden so we chose geraniums. They also come in pink or white. These annuals are hardy for all zones and grow about 2 feet tall. We planted the Geraniums in groups of 4 forming a diamond on each side and in the middle of the garden. Between the Geraniums we planted one of my favorites, Lamb’s Ears. This velvety soft little plant will get about 10 inches tall and has beautiful silver leaves. It produces small purple flowers in the summer and thrives in zones 4-9. Purple is Bonnie’s favorite color so she chose some Sage called ‘Victoria’ to plant in large oval clumps on each side of the garden. This variety of Sage gets about 3 feet tall with violet flowers in summer. It is hardy for all zones.

Our final step was to plant the final front row of Bonnie’s garden. We wanted something small, with bright flowers that would spread rapidly. We chose Alyssum. It only gets 4 inches tall. The flowers come in pink, purple or white and we planted all three colors with 2 white Alyssum between a pink and purple Alyssum.

Maintenance Free Tips

To make this garden maintenance free we first chose plants that needed little or no upkeep. Of course every plant needs to be watered. So we purchased a soaker hose, ran it throughout the garden and covered with a light layer of mulch. We set the hose on a timer so Bonnie does not even have to take the time to turn the water on and off.

Zero Maintenance Garden

To prevent weeds we filled the whole garden space so there were no empty spots for those pesty little devils to grow. If, when you are done planting, you find you have some bare spots, try purchasing some cheap filler plants like Alyssum or Impatiens. Get whatever is on sale at your nursery and is fairly maintenance free. Or, purchase more of the plants you already chose to fill in those bare spots.

Plant Choices

Sunny

Other sun-loving low maintenance plants to try are Russian Sage for zones 4-9. It gets about 4 feet tall and has lavender flowers in the summer. Rosa rugosa comes in yellow, pink, red or white and blooms from summer through fall. It gets about 5 feet tall and can be planted in zones 3-9. Fulvous Daylily is an orange trumpet shaped flower for zones 3-9. It can get over 3 feet tall. The Rudbeckia variety ‘Goldsturm’ is a Daisy-like flower of brown and gold. It is suited to zones 3-9 and grows up to 2 feet tall.

Shady

If you choose to plant your garden in a shady area you might want to try Hosta, or more specifically the variety ‘Hosa crispula’. This plant has lilac flowers in summer with leaves bordered in white. It grows best in zones 3-8 and can get up to 2 ½ feet tall. Epimedium is an excellent groundcover and a good filler for bare spots. Its spring flowers are pink, yellow or white and it will get up to 1 foot tall in zones 4-8. Lenten Rose has lovely purple or off-white flowers that last into late winter. This plant does best in zones 4-9. Bottlebrush Buckeye is a shrub that can get 8-12 feet tall with white flowers in summer. It is suitable for zones 4-9.

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Soil Type

Dry Soil

Another deciding factor when choosing plants is your soil type. For dry soil try some Hen-and-Chicks. These tiny plants are shaped in lovely rosettes in silver, green, or maroon, and get up to 4 inches tall. This is another good filler plant for those bare spots. Hen-and-Chicks grows best in zones 5-9. The Lavendar plant variety ‘Munstead’ will grow up to 3 feet tall and prefers zones 5-9. As you may correctly guess, its flowers are lavender and bloom in the summer. The Sedum variety ‘Autumn Joy’ has beautiful pink flowers in fall that turn copper in winter. It gets up to 2 feet tall. Sedum likes zones 3-9. A final plant that likes dry soil is Shrubby St. Johnswort. It has happy yellow flowers in summer and will get up to 4 feet tall. Shrubby St. Johnswort is for zones 3-8.

Wet Soil

If your chosen garden area has wet soil that might not drain very well try planting Astilbe. The summer flowers of Astilbe come in red, pink, or white. This plant gets 3 feet tall and is made for zones 3-9. Helenium autumnale is a daisy-like flower with brilliant blooms of orange or yellow. It grows best in zones 3-8 and can get up to 4 feet tall. The Trollium variety ‘Alabaster’ has yellow-white flowers in spring time. Growing up to 2 feet tall Trollium can be planted in zones 5-8. And, finally, one of my favorites, Japanese Iris. Japanese Iris has pink, purple, white and blue flowers that bloom in spring. This plant will get up to 2 feet tall and can be sown in zones 4-9.

I do have a confession to make. Bonnie’s garden was not totally maintenance free. Her favorite flower is the rose. She insisted on planting a few rose bushes in her garden. But, she reasoned, only having to care for 3 plants versus 33 plants was a fair trade off to be able to enjoy her precious roses. So, if there is plant you really like that may require a little care, consider planting it in your maintenance free garden. It may even be more spectacular than you anticipated as all your attention will be devoted to this one favorite plant.

Good luck and have fun gardening!!
Emma