How do I make my garden lower maintenance?

Low maintenance is a design outcome rather than a plant list. Most garden work is weeding bare soil, edging awkward shapes and watering plants in the wrong place — all of which are decisions rather than inevitabilities.

What you'll need

• Mulch
• Ground-cover plants (optional)
• Edging (optional)

Step by step

1. Eliminate bare soil.Bare soil grows weeds. Either plant it densely or mulch it thickly. This single principle removes most routine weeding.
2. Mulch every bed annually.Five to eight centimetres of compost or bark. It suppresses weeds, holds moisture and feeds the soil. It is the highest-value hour in the gardening year.
3. Choose plants that suit the conditions you have.Right plant, right place. A plant in the wrong conditions needs constant intervention; a well-matched one needs almost none.
4. Plant densely with ground cover.Plants covering the soil are living mulch. Once established they exclude weeds and need nothing.
5. Reduce the length of edges.Edging is time-consuming and fiddly. Simple sweeping curves rather than intricate shapes, and a hard edge that a mower can run over.
6. Reconsider how much lawn you need.Lawn is the most demanding surface in most gardens. Reducing it, or letting part of it grow long, cuts the work substantially and helps wildlife.
7. Favour shrubs and perennials over bedding.Annual bedding is replanted twice a year. Shrubs and perennials do the same job for years with a single annual tidy.
8. Install a water butt and consider a drip system.Watering is a large recurring job. Automating even part of it, particularly for pots, saves real time all summer.

Tips

• Pots are the highest-maintenance element of any garden — daily watering in summer. Fewer, larger pots is dramatically less work than many small ones.
• Gravel is low maintenance only over a membrane and only if leaves are cleared; otherwise it grows weeds in the accumulated debris.
• A wilder area that is simply cut once a year is both less work and better for wildlife than a mown lawn.

Common mistakes

• Leaving bare soil between plants — Bare soil grows weeds continuously. Planting densely or mulching thickly removes the majority of routine garden work.
• Choosing plants for how they look rather than the conditions — A plant in unsuitable conditions needs constant watering, feeding and replacing. A well-matched one looks after itself.
• Assuming gravel or paving is maintenance-free — Both accumulate debris that weeds germinate in, and both need clearing. Neither is genuinely no-work.

Questions people ask