A Guide for Easy to Care For
Plants and Planting Design
Owners do not want to care for their plants and property as much anymore. A common thing that homeowners look for when fixing their lawns is how to do it quickly or inexpensively and with “low maintenance plants.” Having a landscape designer is a great help at choosing what kind of plants to have and where to put them to achieve your low-maintenance dream.
In this guide, we will discuss what low maintenance is and means. We will also discuss how low-maintenance plants will fit into your planting design and how you can still make an impact on your property.
Low Maintenance What is it?
First of all, maintenance of your plants and yard consists of the basics such as watering, fertilizing, raking, trimming, mowing, and seasonal changes. The majority of these points will have to stay, but you can find ways to reduce the amount that you do. Picking the proper planting choices for your needs will help with the reduction.
When thinking of revitalizing your property, doing it in a way that makes it low maintenance is beneficial to you because it offers less labor with faster results and can generally be cost-effective.
Low Maintenance Planting Should
- Offer the best plant success
- Keep the landscape design you originally wanted
- Limit the amount that you have to put back into your yard, such as fertilizer and mowing
- Limit the amount of time and money that goes into your yard
Designing with Easy to Care for Plants
The Proper Plants:
The first step into your low-maintenance planting is choosing the right plants for your location. Picking plants appropriately adapted to your climate or native to where you live will be easier to take care of.
As mentioned before, native species of plants can be beneficial to your planting. If they have good landscape performances, placing them in your yard where it is closest to their original habitat will leave them needing little to no assistance from you.
Climate-adapted plants are also a great option next to native species as they will also thrive in the same climate as their original habitats. Using both of these options helps open up plant choices and allows you not to need to care for them as closely as some other plants may require.
No matter where your plants originate from, putting them into groups can help section them easier. Having plants that need the same amount of soil, sunlight, and water allows you to tackle them all in one area instead of randomly placing them. Putting plants that look good around each other also helps bring a visual aesthetic to your yard.
Switch out your Lawn:
Caring for your lawn can be the most laborious and time-consuming part of landscaping. It takes so many steps to care for it, from mowing, fertilizing to watering it and more. All these steps take a lot of your time and plenty of resources when there are better options for your landscaping.
However, a lawn is still more suitable for walking, playing, etc. You are not eliminating the entire yard but replacing parts of it with other options that can be more environmentally friendly and durable. Having less lawn can reduce fertilizer pollution and reduce the gas and energy used for mowing your yard.
Composite Decking:
Hanging out on a deck can be the best way to relax in the summer but is also a great way to help our environment. Your classic wood decks will need continuous maintenance with staining and bleaching. Composite polymer decking is a great environmental option as it keeps around 30 lbs of plastic out of landfills for every 20ft of decking used.
This type of deck lasts longer, keeps its color, and has all the warmth of wood while still being cool enough for your touch. Composite decking can be a fantastic way to cover dead spots of grass that won’t grow or fill in a large piece of the area you aren't sure what to do with.
Mulch:
Mulch is excellent and the top option for a low-maintenance garden. Mulch helps to subdue weeds meaning less weeding, and also dramatically limits water evaporation, so you won’t need to water it as much. Mulch is also an excellent insulator for your plants.
Choosing the proper mulch depends on your climate, so researching your area and which suits you best will help immensely. The best upkeep for mulch is applying a new layer when it needs. Colder areas could be once a year, where warmer maybe twice, but it depends on what mulch you have.
Plant Droppings:
When deciding on your plant choices, definitely avoid ones with heavy seeding or droppings. Picking plants with lots of litter and fruit can be a disaster for your low-maintenance lifestyle. Although choosing shrubs and trees that only litter once a year to fill out the yard can be worth it if you choose so.
Plant Durably:
If you are someone with children, pets, or your space is a heavy foot traffic area, you will want to plant in a tough way. Using plants that can handle foot traffic will help minimize them dying from being trampled. Avoid the delicate species of plants if your lawn is more foot traffic-based.
Planting in Containers:
Using planting containers can give you more control over your planting. You will pick everything that goes into your planters, from the soil to the water. You decide where they go and how they look, so choosing plant container-friendly species will help to make them last longer.
Turf:
Going back to being durable turf is precisely that. Turf can save water and uses fewer chemicals than a regular lawn would. It needs much less care than grass; it is a fantastic and almost the number one option for low-maintenance design.
Lastly, following through with this guide will help you achieve your low-maintenance planting and design with little hassle. You may still need to assist your plants and yard but not as much as before. In the coming months and years, you will figure out what plants work best for your yard and what to do differently, but for now, this guide will hopefully get you started in the right direction.