Many people want a beautiful property, but don’t want to spend their evenings and weekends working in the yard. Since all landscapes require care, follow these tips and create a beautiful, low-maintenance garden that is also healthy habitat for humans, and other creatures.
What is a Low-Maintenance Habitat Garden?
Essentially, a low-maintenance habitat garden works with nature instead of trying to control it. Healthy gardens require ample food, shelter, and water for their inhabitants. To do this, include native plants that turn sunlight into food for the living things that evolved with these plants. For example, insects, like butterflies, look for specific plants on which to lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch, the caterpillars have the food they need to grow. Birds and other animals eat these insects as well as native berries, nuts, and seeds. Add these plants, care for them thoughtfully, and create a beautiful property alive with trees, shrubs, and flowers that supports incredible abundance and requires minimal maintenace.
Switch From Maintenance to Management
Gardens change over time. Plants grow. Some grow better than expected, while some fail to thrive. Accept this change, and consider your property a dynamic place. Guide it with a light hand. Allow native trees to sprout and wildflowers to take root, and only adjust as necessary. Watch for ecologically damaging plants or other potential problems and address them when they arise. Sometimes you can predict what will happen, and sometimes you will be surprised. Most likely, you will be thrilled with the beauty that results.
If you are not sure when to intervene, experiment! And don’t worry if you try something and don’t like the results, gardening is inherintly a humbling pursuit. The complexity of ecological systems is also what makes it so fasinating. Think about your garden in terms of making improvements over years, and enjoy the process.
Plant Native Plants Densely
Plant your garden densely with plants you love and let them out compete most weeds. Then, any weeds that do emerge may even go unnoticed. Use vigorous, native plants that grow well together to both lower maintenance requirements and create habitat. Invite the pollinators, birds, and other wildlife that they support and truly bring your garden to life. And use them to fill as many spaces as possible!
Select Appropriate Plants
Select the “right plant for the right place”, as the saying goes. Consider cultural conditions, like sun exposure and soil type to eliminate the need for fertilizing and excessive watering. Plants that are well chosen require neither after they are established.
Also consider the ultimate size of plants. Select plants that will not block windows or grow into walkways. Eliminate the annual pruning of overgrown shrubs by removing them completely and replacing them with dwarf cultivars or species that remain small.
If you are not sure what plants to choose, do your research by looking at university or public garden websites, or published native plant guides. Or hire a landscape designer to help you decide. Planning in advance often saves time and money in the long run.
Embrace Your Wild Side
Another tip for a low-maintenance garden that is also great for wildlife is to let it grow! Mow less, prune less, and mulch less!
Turn any area that is not used for human activity into wild spaces. Stop mowing steep hillsides and wet areas and turn them into meadows. Create mixed borders of trees and shrubs along property lines for visual interest, privacy, and habitat.
Remove any large weeds and manage highly visible edges and to give your property a cared for appearance. This way, wilder areas do not look out of control
Leave the Leaves
This method saves time, money, and is actually GREAT for your gardens! Large amounts of leaves may damage lawn, so, turn shady areas, into woodland garden beds. Use leaves for mulch and eliminate the need to purchase and spread hardwood mulch in the spring. Shade plants appreciate this natural organic material and many creatures use the leaves as shelter throughout the year.
Leave Perennials Standing
Most perennials do not need to be cut back in the fall. Birds eat the seed heads and insects overwinter in their stems. After temperatures warm up in the spring, line trim the stems or break them off at differing heights. Then leave the cut stems as mulch!
Leave Weedy Debris in the Bed
Instead of hauling weeds away, pull them and then hide them underneath your other plants. It’s far easier, and in a densely planted garden, no one will ever know! It also adds organic matter to the garden which is great for the soil.
Better yet, don’t pull them at all! Stop annual and biennial weeds before they go to seed by cutting them off at the base. Japanese stiltgrass and Garlic mustard fall into this category. Just make sure seed heads are removed to disrupt the plant’s life cycle, and within a few seasons, you should see fewer of these in your garden.
Once again, save yourself time and effort by learning about the weeds you are targeting to determine the best control method. Plant identification aps and state extension offices are great resources.
Keep Up With the Garden
Walk through your property frequently. Look for issues like new problematic plant species or areas of erosion and address them early. Learn about pesticide use before you spray. It is usually far easier to tackle issues early, and you have the added benefit of spending time in your garden!
Hire Gardeners
For the ultimate low-maintenance garden, hire a gardener to do it for you! They can keep up with the weeds, prune as needed, cut back perennials when the time is right, and let you know if something isn’t right.
From adding native plants throughout, to allowing for more wild spaces, there are many ways to invite wildlife add beauty to your property while minimizing maintenance. Let’s learn new ways to manage the land and reap the rewards for us and our non-human neighbors.