Low Maintenance Landscaping

What is low maintenance landscaping and why would I want it?

Low maintenance landscaping is the process of constructing outdoor spaces that require as little upkeep as possible, whilst still providing the desired aesthetic, style and functionality.

As our lives get busier and our spaces get smaller, the need for creative landscape design is only greater. With more people in the workplace than ever, the time to spend pottering around the garden has become a luxury not everyone can afford. This could be true for a young family, an entrepreneur or a small business owner. It does not however, mean everyone cannot benefit from the joy that plants and gardens bring to our lives. It simply puts more pressure on landscapers to create spaces that cater to those needs, especially for properties in sunny Nelson, New Zealand.

How can I get the best of both worlds? A great outdoor living space, without all the up keep.

An essential component to the New Zealand summer is an outdoor dining area for those afternoon barbecues in the sun. When the weather turns cold, a fire pit or brasier can be the center piece for an outdoor lounge area or a heated spa pool to relax and enjoy those clear winter night skies. Low maintenance hard landscaping such as decking or paving is the essential ingredient that makes all these luxuries possible. Whether it is a paved courtyard with raised gardens or a decking area with a built in kitchen and barbeque, building solid structures with quality materials that last will set the foundation for your space.

Whilst more hard landscaping will reduce your maintenance, it is important to allow space for your softer elements like gardens and lawns. Here you have to balance your desire for greenery with your time available for maintenance. Using herbaceous plants that don't drop their leaves, or artificial turf instead of grass, can help soften things up without creating more work. The addition of a water feature, sculptures or lighting are also great ways of enhancing your area. If your space is limited then you have to prioritize your hard landscaping for your dining/lounge areas, and instead make use of the vertical space, such as living walls, raised gardens and pots to add greenery and colour.

Even the most enthusiastic gardener can benefit from elements of low maintenance landscaping methods, they may just lean a little harder on the garden side of things and incorporate more plants that require attention.

If you require a quote or consultation for your next landscaping project, you can get in touch with us via our contact page.

5 low maintenance garden tips

Bare soil = more weeds: Reducing exposed soil in your garden will reduce the amount of unwanted weeds. You can achieve this by either using a thick biodegradable mulch layer, such as bark, or alternatively removing excess soil and replacing it with a non-biodegradable material, like rocks. The main difference between these two approaches importantly is the word bio-degradable. Any bio-degradable material will ultimately breakdown and therefore is a temporary solution to the problem. The goal is for your plants to eventually fill the garden and outcompete any would be weeds. Rocks are a more permanent feature and therefore you can have plants further spaced out with the intention of them never covering the entire space.

Dense planting: Following on from the first point, the quicker your garden becomes established then the time and space for weeds to grow will be reduced. So, when designing a new garden it is important to space your plants with this in mind. Denser planting will speed up the succession of your garden, however, be mindful to select the right plants.

Choosing the right plants: Not only is this important for dense planting but it is key for any successful garden. Using plants that are suited to the local soil, environment and space available will always result in quicker growing and longer living plants. When planting close together it is important to choose plants that will grow well into each other, like mass herbaceous plants for example. It is also worth considering the eventual size of plants as planting large trees where you shouldn't will always result in further maintenance down the track. Knowing the seasonal change of the environmental conditions of your garden will help you select appropriate plants that will thrive in each position.

Water: Especially in sunny Nelson, water is life. Having access to water all year round extends the growing season for your garden and can result in a fully established garden much sooner. The best situation is to have an automated, subtle and reliable system that requires as little input as possible. To achieve this doesn't have to cost the earth, even an automated tap timer and some dripline will do the trick. One thing to bare in mind is that the water requirements of your garden will change throughout the year and it is important to adjust your system accordingly.

To weed-matt or not to weed-matt: Probably one of the first tactics that comes to mind in order to create the ultimate low maintenance garden for many people is to use weed-matt. So the question is, does weed-matt work? The short and simple answer nearly always is NO.

Placing bark on top of weed-matting in a garden will always result in your plants eventually being starved of nutrients and weeds growing in the broken down bark above. The only application it can be used for is a rock garden or a garden which has a non-biodegradable filling. For any other type of garden, weed-matt causes a plethora of issues which tends to result in a total renovation years down the line, something we deal with often.

Do you have an overgrown weed jungle or want to avoid one with your new garden?

Get in touch for a consultation and free quote.