The Best Low-Maintenance Plants For Simple Outdoor Spaces
Creating a beautiful garden is only the first step, as you now need to maintain this. Keeping your garden healthy and attractive throughout the year is an ongoing commitment homeowners need to make, but many do not have the time or skills to do so. The constant watering, feeding, and pruning needed to ensure your garden remains in prime condition may not be something you can afford – but this does not mean you have to suffer with poor garden design.
To ensure your garden remains attractive all year round, without constant upkeep, rely on low-maintenance planting. Low-maintenance plants allow you to have variety and colour in your outdoor space, but are much easier to care for than traditional options.
Ideal for all kinds of landscapes and homeowners, low-maintenance plants can take one extra task off your plate without sacrifice. In this post, leading landscapers Green Acorn Landscapes Design are sharing the top low-maintenance plants to help you create a simple outdoor space that thrives all year round.
What Is Low-Maintenance Planting?
Low-maintenance gardens are an ideal solution for a range of people, whether you are a busy homeowner, have limited mobility or simply are not interested in gardening. While there are many elements of low-maintenance gardens, planting plays a key role as it determines how much upkeep is required to keep your landscape looking its best.
Most plants change with the seasons and require care such as watering, fertilising and pruning to keep them looking their best. Garden maintenance not only improves the way your landscape looks, but also ensures it is healthy and can thrive with the current conditions.
To reduce the amount of work needed in your garden, you can choose low-maintenance plants. These plants do not have the same demands as traditional options, due to factors such as:
- Drought Tolerance: These are hardy low-maintenance plants that can thrive in dry, hot conditions, reducing the need for constant watering and soil maintenance
- Disease Tolerance: Many plants have an organic resistance to pests and diseases, making them a great option for low-maintenance gardens, as no additional support is needed
- Slow-Growing Or Evergreen: Evergreen plants do not change with the seasons, and instead maintain their foliage throughout the year. Slow-growing plants are ideal for a low-maintenance landscape as they reduce the need for pruning and shaping, without compromising the visual appeal of your outdoor space
- Hardy Perennials: These plants will return to your garden year after year, and many can thrive in poor soil conditions or in extreme light conditions, such as shady spots or high sunlight areas
The Best Low-Maintenance Plants For Easy Gardening
There are various kinds of low-maintenance plants that can be included within your garden design to make the space easier to maintain. Whether you do not have the time, skills or interest in gardening, these low-maintenance plants are a great option:
Drought-Tolerant Perennials
Perennials return to your garden year after year, allowing you to maintain the same design and structure without additional effort. This is why they are a staple of most low-maintenance gardens, but these particular options take things a step further.
Drought-tolerant perennials require little watering once established, making them ideal for dry, sunny gardens. Plants such as Lavender, Sedum, Coneflower, and Russian Sage are ideal options for south-facing and dry landscapes due to their drought tolerance, as well as for those who want to reduce the need for watering in their garden.
As well as being drought-resistant, these plants are also an ideal option for pollinators. Long-flowering plants, such as Lavender and Coneflower, attract bees and butterflies to your garden and can support local biodiversity without any additional effort from you.
Bulbs And Self-Seeding Annuals
While these low-maintenance plants have a shorter life span than perennials, they are still a wonderful addition to your landscape and easy to take care of. Plants such as Alliums, Daffodils, Nigella, and California Poppies add seasonal colour to your landscape and can come back each year without additional interference from you.
Bulbs will return every year and usually mark the changing of the seasons, such as the blooming of daffodils during early spring. Other low-maintenance plants, such as California Poppies, are self-seeding, which means they can essentially take care of themselves. Seeding will usually occur during the winter, so you will have new plants to enjoy in the spring and summer without any additional work.
It is important to note that these plants, specifically poppies, require plenty of sunlight to thrive. Additional maintenance may be needed as they establish, such as watering and soil aeration to keep it well-drained, but once the flowers bloom, you can enjoy the views without extra work.
Low-Maintenance Grasses And Structural Plants
Grasses and structural plants provide movement and texture to your outdoor space, and are particularly popular in contemporary garden design. They are a simple yet effective way to add variation to the landscape and do not require a lot of upkeep.
Plants such as Mexican Feathergrass, Carex, Phormium, and Fatsia are ideal for layer planting displays to provide depth and interest. They are popular with modern garden design because they are simple and monochromatic, adding variations of greenery to the garden. The simple structure of these grasses and structural plants aligns with the minimalist design of contemporary outdoor spaces, but can also be used to complement more complex planting displays.
Smaller gardens can also benefit from these kinds of low-maintenance plants because they provide height and interest, without taking too much space. Used in planters or containers, these plants can decorate seating areas, patios and decks without needing constant upkeep.
Unlike traditional lawn grasses, these plants require little to no trimming and can thrive in a range of soil conditions.
Evergreen Shrubs For Structure And Privacy
Evergreen shrubs are a staple of all kinds of low-maintenance landscapes, and can complement both traditional and contemporary garden designs. They can be used in both front and back gardens to provide structure and privacy, offering better screening from overlooking neighbours with their dense foliage.
Shrubs such as Boxwood, Spindle Tree (Euonymus), Cheesewood, and Skimmia maintain their foliage all year round. They require little pruning, but some shaping may be needed over time to keep your garden neat and structured. These low-maintenance plants can be used as the primary boundary of your garden, or to create separate zones.
As they are evergreen, your garden will look the same all year round and does not require ongoing work to ensure this.
Low-Maintenance Container Planting
Container planting is a great way to make gardening easier, and there are specific low-maintenance plants to take this a step further. Slow-growing plants such as Dwarf conifers, Heucheras, and Agapanthus thrive in containers, offering colour and foliage throughout the year to adorn your landscape.
Ideal for small outdoor spaces or as decoration in key areas, such as the deck or patio, container plants are a versatile element of garden design. They can be moved as needed, and you can add more visual appeal by choosing ornate pots or colourful containers.
Soil conditions are easy to maintain in containers, and as these are slow-growing plants, the need to re-pot is reduced and less frequent – if required at all.
Conclusion
A low-maintenance garden does not have to be boring, as you have plenty of planting options to add colour, texture and movement. Whether you have a contemporary or traditional outdoor space, there are various low-maintenance planting options to make upkeep easy.
From hardy perennials to evergreen shrubs, container plants to structural foliage, low-maintenance plants are a great way to adorn your landscape without the need for constant upkeep. Low-maintenance gardening is beneficial for a range of people and a fun way to maximise the enjoyment of your outdoor space.
For additional support or advice regarding garden maintenance, work with professional landscapers like our team. We offer a range of services to bring out the best in your garden and can help to design a new landscape that is low effort but high appeal.
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FAQs
What’s the best low-maintenance plant for full sun?
Lavender is the top pick for low-maintenance planting in south-facing gardens as it is drought-tolerant. It thrives in full sun, requires little watering and is a very attractive plant for all kinds of garden designs.
Are ornamental grasses really low maintenance?
Yes, ornamental grasses are extremely low maintenance. They usually require light pruning once a year, during the spring, to maintain their structure, but are otherwise self-sufficient.
Can I have a low-maintenance garden with lots of colour?
Absolutely, low maintenance does not have to mean boring. To add colour to your low-maintenance garden, choose perennials such as Coneflower and Salvia or long-lasting bulbs such as Alliums.
