Do you have a low maintainance garden?

[TheBrit]

When living in the UK both myself and wife worked long hard hours 5/6 days a week. We had a relatively large rear garden, by UK standards, and wanted to be able to enjoy it, rather than just spend our limited free time working in it to try to keep it looking respectable.
To this end I created a "low maintainance" garden.
Grass gave way to slabs, with a few being left out to allow small bushes flowering plants to be planted. Borders were left around most of the edges and these raised with decorative blocks to create raised borders for planting.
Numerous pots of different shapes sizes and colours bought for bedding plants and dotted around the garden.
The only real maintainance required was trimming of the few bushes and maintaining the beds. Buying planting and deadheading of the bedding plants was considered "enjoyment". Later a pergola and a couple of avaries were added. Our little area of paradise.

 

[Becky]

That sounds lovely! Nothing worse than having to cut the grass when all you want to do is sit back and enjoy yourself. Sounds like you have the best of both worlds!

 

[Kansas Terri]

I placed a small amount of weed barrier around the peonies I planted in my lawn last fall. My idea was to set it up so that I would not have to hand-trim the grass around the base of the peonies to keep them looking nice. Unfortunately, the weed barrier does not appear to be heavy enough to prevent the grass from growing underneath it, so now I am trying to decide if I should mulch over the weed barrier or simply lay down another layer. I am leaning towards mulching it with wood chips, as it would help the foliage hide the weed barrier.

TheBrit, I agree with you! Tending flowering plants really is "enjoyment"!

 

[claudine]

TheBrit, it's a wonderful idea! Even though I love working in my garden, I'm sure that I wouldn't enjoy it this much if I didn't have enough free time.
My garden doesn't need much but taking care of my miniature roses is very time consuming. I have to wash them every single day since I fight with this awful, white fungus. I also prune them often and water them. They need a lot of water.

 

[DrCase]

Gardening for retirement

 

[GardenElixir]

My garden is quite low maintenance, I'm okay with that though because I don't have a lot of time to spend in my garden, it still looks pretty though!

 

[ACSAPA]

My old apartment had a yard that I had to mow and weed as part of my rental arrangement. I gave up a crappy apartment with a yard for a nice apartment with no yard.
At this point I just have potted plants and windows overlooking a park, so I just have to water my potted plants and that's about it.

 

[cmckinney01]

My garden is pretty low maintenance. For the most part, I just do the two W's - weed and water. Sometimes, it needs more care such as pruning of the roses. Most of the time, my garden does pretty well on its own with a little help from me.

 

[Pat]

The few plants I had last year were in pots, which kept the maintenance low, all I had to do was water and weed the rose bush which is not in a pot.