Cultivating a Vibrant Garden Without Sacrificing Your Weekend Leisure
In the pursuit of a stunning, thriving garden that demands minimal effort, certified Master Gardener Kelsey McDonough offers expert advice on low-maintenance gardening. With a Ph.D. in biological and agricultural engineering, McDonough's knowledge spans from gardening and homesteading to hydrology and climate change.
To achieve a low-maintenance garden, focus on smart design choices, thoughtful plant selection, and simplified care routines that reduce time, cost, and effort while maintaining your garden's health and aesthetic appeal.
Key hacks and tips:
- Select the right plants: Opt for native, drought-tolerant, and hardy perennials, such as lavender, sedum, ornamental grasses, and evergreen shrubs. These plants naturally thrive in your local climate with minimal watering, fertilizing, and pruning.
- Reduce lawn area: Lawns require significant care (watering, mowing, fertilizing). Replacing or minimizing lawn space with ground covers, mulches, or hardscape elements can drastically cut maintenance.
- Use mulching: Applying mulch helps retain soil moisture, suppress weeds, and reduce watering frequency, encouraging healthy plant growth.
- Implement smart watering: Prefer drip irrigation or soaker hoses targeted at the plant roots rather than overhead watering, reducing water waste and disease risk. Choose plants that need little supplemental irrigation once established.
- Minimize pruning and deadheading: Opt for plants requiring little pruning, and deadhead only when necessary to encourage growth, focusing on low-care varieties.
- Utilize space-saving techniques: For vegetable gardens, use methods like the tomato string technique to train plants vertically, improving air circulation and reducing disease, which eases plant maintenance and improves yields.
- Seasonal care simplification: In fall, perform efficient tasks like proper mowing height, leaf mulching, and strategic fertilizing to prepare plants for dormancy, reducing next season’s workload.
These expert approaches integrate environmental adaptation, efficient watering, mulching, and careful plant choices to create a sustainable, beautiful garden that demands minimal labor and resources throughout the year.
For personalized help with low-maintenance gardening, reach out to 'Ask Extension' for one-to-one expert answers from Cooperative Extension or University staff and volunteers in your state. The Missouri Botanical Garden also offers a guide to low-maintenance perennials, based on research-backed information from experts from universities and the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Automated, drip irrigation systems are beneficial for low-maintenance gardening, as they slowly deliver water to the base of each plant, minimizing evaporation and keeping leaves dry. Programmable smart timers, like those suggested by the University of Georgia, can be used with automated irrigation systems to make them more hands-off.
Remember, the best garden is one that is placed where it can be easily seen daily, such as outside the kitchen door or next to the driveway. Mulching around plants with a deep layer of shredded leaves, grass, straw, or wood chips can smother weeds, retain moisture, and regulate soil temperature.
Lastly, native plants are recommended for low-maintenance gardening as they are already suited to thrive in local climates and require less maintenance. Soaker hoses can be used as an alternative to a more complicated drip irrigation system.
Embrace these expert approaches, and enjoy a beautiful, effortless garden all year round!
- To create a stunning, low-maintenance garden, consider decorating raised beds with drought-tolerant perennials such as lavender, sedum, and ornamental grasses, which are known for their minimal watering, fertilizing, and pruning needs.
- In order to simplify care routines and reduce effort, you might want to raise garden beds and fill them with appropriate soil for the local climate to improve drainage and promote healthy plant growth.
- Integrating flowers like those mentioned into your garden lifestyle can make your home-and-garden more appealing, while also providing an abundance of pollinators and benefits for the local ecosystem.
- For vegetable gardens, consider planting perennials and utilizing space-saving techniques like the tomato string method, which helps train plants vertically and encourages healthier growth using less water and effort.
- To ensure proper watering and reduce overall maintenance, opt for automated, drip irrigation systems or soaker hoses, which can be programmed with smart timers to make your garden more hands-off while still maintaining its health and aesthetic appeal.
