4 steps to a garden that almost takes care of itself

You don’t have to compromise on good looks to grow a low-maintenance garden that practically takes care of itself. Make a few smart choices and you’ll enjoy more flowers and a tidier garden, all while reducing the time you spend on chores. Does it sound too good to be true? It’s not, I promise, because that’s how I’ve been gardening for the past decade.

It’s not that I’m a lazy gardener – although it’s true that I like to spend as many hours relaxing in my petal paradise as I do maintaining it. I just don’t subscribe to the gardening rule that you have to invest months of work to be rewarded with a few weeks of flowers. No – I take horticultural shortcuts rooted in science to get more glorious blooms in exchange for less hard graft.

These are the four garden secrets behind my lovely but serious low maintenance backyard. Try one, try two, or try all four so you can put your feet up and enjoy your blooming yard more often. Cheers!

1. Embrace Groundcover

purple creeping phlox grown with hostas in a garden border as ground cover

If you’re not growing ground cover plants in your borders, then you’re missing a trick. Using Easy-to-grow ground cover plants that thrive on neglect it won’t create another project, but it will save you a lot of time. Not only does the ground cover do a great job of suppressing weeds once established, but it acts as a living mulch to lock moisture into the soil, meaning you don’t need to water as often.

If you want to cut off faded flowers or do a quick pruning now and then then you can use ground cover that blooms for months to bring a whole new layer of flowers to your border. There is even one brand new soil hydrangeaif you really want to show off!

It’s my go-to groundcover creeping phlox as it is gentle enough to go around larger plants but tenacious enough to effectively smother weeds and its fragrance is as pleasant as flowers. I also grow Sedum ‘Angelina’ in my roadside bed because while I always want that part of the garden to be presentable, I don’t want to be out there in my tattered garden shorts keeping it that way. And honestly, I haven’t watered this green dream of a plant in over two years now, and it couldn’t be happier.

Adding ground cover to your garden doesn’t have to be expensive either. Because of their natural propagation, most ground cover plants can be dug up regularly and divided to make new plants. Or if you’re really on a budget, take your pick ground cover that can be grown from seed in the spring.

2. Discover the sterile plants that do not need to be killed

Purple hardy geranium, geranium, in flower

Most plants grow flowers to be pollinated by insects so that they form seeds and have a few shots at the survival of the species next year if they are annualor try to expand their kingdom if they are perennial. Once they set seed, these plants will slow down or even stop blooming altogether – that’s why we’re dead. Removing faded blooms forces the plant to start producing seeds again, so it produces fresh petals.

Some hybrid plants don’t do that though. When two different types of plants are crossed by breeders, the cells cannot always combine correctly to form seeds in the new hybrid. The hormonal signal that usually shouts “stop flowering now” when the seeds are never sent and the plant continues to flower. And it blooms. And it’s blooming!

Some modern lantana cultivars such as ‘Lemon Drop’, ‘Miss Huff’ and ‘New Gold’ are sterile, as are Angelonia (Summer Snapdragons). i grow piles of Geranium ‘Rozanne’ whose purple blooms fall through other perennials, and Gaura Lindheimeri ‘Whirling Butterflies’ for flower patches on tall wiry stems (good to know this has recently been reclassified as Oenotheraif you have trouble finding it online). Lavender ‘Grosso’ is another of my sterile favorites as its long stems and fragrant buds are perfect for crafting.

The other huge plus is that sterile plants don’t give you a hundred unwanted seedlings to pull out in the spring.

3. Add self-seeds that need light to germinate

At the exact opposite end of the spectrum are self-seeds. Now, some self-seeds are a godsend in a low-maintenance garden, sprinkling flowers through the border and quietly filling in the gaps. Others are a huge headache, growing in sections of new plants that can cross borders.

The trick is to choose self-seeding plants that need light to germinate. This means that the seeds will only germinate where there is room for them to do so, and also that you can just toss them into a bed and pretty much forget about them.

have universe, columbine and love in fog they run through all my low-maintenance borders and happily squeeze in between larger perennials. How much of a variety I get depends a lot on the weather, as some years suit some better than others. I cheat the system a bit by cutting some seeds at the end of summer and giving them a good shake where I’d like them to grow the most too.

4. Divided plants resistant to drought and deep consumption

red echinacea growing in a drought tolerant border

Growing plants that have different moisture needs side by side means you’ll be stressing over a hose forever. Some plants will wilt from lack of moisture, while others complain of being overwatered with unsightly yellow leaves. The answer is to separate the borders drought tolerant plants and those that need consistent moisture so you never water unnecessarily.

I take a fairly relaxed attitude towards gardening, but this is where I get strict, and not just because I live in a dry part of the country that is almost always rubber-banned in the summer. Providing plants with the moisture levels they prefer makes a huge difference to their well-being, rather than just surviving, and affects abundance and how long they bloom.

me too train deep drinking plants to become more drought tolerant giving them more water, less often. Most plant roots will grow toward moisture, so by saturating the soil when you water and then letting it dry out, you encourage the roots to grow downwards, where they’ll be in a better position to get their own water. Water every day with a light sprinkling and the roots will remain on the surface where they are much more vulnerable to drying out.

Bonus move to cut lawn maintenance in half

man mowing lawn with lower lawn and grass clippings flying in the air

OK, so your lawn doesn’t grow flowers, but since I’ll bet grass is the single highest maintenance plant in your garden, cutting jobs here means a lot more time to appreciate your flower-filled border. For starters, setting up your lawn for a good spring season it will save you loads of maintenance for the rest of the year. But right now, there’s a really easy way to speed up the time it takes to care for your lawn, and that’s to leave your lawn clippings where they fall, as mulch.

The edges of the grass blades that are cut each time you mow are full of nitrogen. So instead of putting them in the compost pile or in the trash, let them break down to fertilize your lawn as well as lock in moisture. Just be sure to mow when it’s dry so the clippings don’t clump together, and if you don’t have a mulching function on your lawnmower, mow regularly so the clippings are close.

This is how robotic lawnmowers work – and speaking of which, if you’ve ever thought about purchasing the ultimate time-saving garden device, now is the time to buy. Once mid-summer is past – especially for models that have an updated design in the works for next year – products are often heavily discounted, so there are usually good deals to be had.