Low Maintenance Gardening
Short on time but craving a lush, green outdoor space? Wanting to garden but realizing you’re short on time this season? It’s time to learn more about low-maintenance gardening.
A low-maintenance garden is one that is characterized by very little intervention. Think of it as sort of a set it and forget it! These gardens don’t require a lot of pruning, deadheading, harvesting or staking. They have manageable water requirements and are often comprised of perennial plants rather than annual plants.
A low-maintenance garden is really a thing of beauty! It’s suitable for almost any outdoor space but is really about how much time you have to care for your garden. This style of garden might be for you if:
You travel frequently
Spend summers away camping or at the cottage
Have mobility issues
Are busy with other time commitments
Don’t wish to spend time maintaining a garden
Systems matter
To reduce the amount of labour in the garden consider investing in some simple systems. First off, having an irrigation system greatly reduces the work in the garden as you are able to irrigate your plants nice and early in the morning while you’re sleeping. The good news about newer irrigation systems is that they are also quite easy to program and don’t require a technical background to understand them. You can also invest in edging to keep your garden beds defined from your grass and in mulch to help suppress weeds naturally.
What makes a plant low maintenance?
In general, one that doesn’t require intervention during the growing season. Deadheading, which is the practice of cutting back spent blooms is sometimes a divisive topic in the gardening realm. Plants like bee balm and echinacea are beautiful and low maintenance and don’t strictly require deadheading, however many gardeners like to cut back the spent blooms for aesthetic reasons or to encourage further flowering. From an ecological standpoint, letting your blooms go to seed can have many advantages. Plants like sedums and ferns will require very little work, you can also think about investing in plants that grow as a ground cover to help create a living mulch in your garden. Other plants that you might want to grow that are low maintenance include herbs like chives, thyme and oregano.
Edible gardens can also be designed with lower maintenance crops in mind. Onions for example require very little work, as do the herbs mentioned above. Perennial edible plants like serviceberry otherwise known as Saskatoon berry plants also make for great early berries in the garden. You can also grow long season greens like kale, and collards which will require very little intervention and can be harvested and eaten raw or cooked.
Top 5 ornamental plants for a low maintenance garden:
Sweet woodruff, great ground cover and you can use it to make tea
Autumn Joy sedums
Ornamental sage
Coreopsis for a bright pop of colour
Yarrow, for its drought tolerance and pretty colours
Top 5 edible plants for a low maintenance garden:
Onions and leeks
Kale and collards
Radishes and hakurei turnips
Herbs like thyme, oregano and chives
Bush beans
There is no shame in wanting to tend your garden less and the garden that best suits you is one that matches the time and energy you have to dedicate to it. A set it and forget it garden is certainly worthy of your effort!
Make sure to check out our blog for more useful tips and articles to help you grow your best garden.
