If you’re the kind of person who takes pride in your home, than you’re likely want to keep your garden in the best shape too. Gardening jobs can be therapeutic, plus such tasks can help you to learn more about nature and green-living. For a low maintenance gardening that still looks great, check out these simple tips!
Create a Low Maintenance Garden with These Simple Tips
There are a few things to always consider with healthy low maintenance gardening: soil, sun, weeds and use. Many times, we overlook one or two of these basic concepts.
Start with Great Soil Before Planting
Rule number one of achieving the perfect garden soil is perfecting your composting regime.
Collect your food waste and use it as fertilizer for your garden. From leftover fruit and vegetable to eggs shells, coffee grounds or plant trimmings, they can all be added to your composting pile. With a few composting tips you’ll soon have yourself the perfect pile. It’s easy to build a large compost pile outside, and also have a small kitchen composter too!
Be sure to test your soil before planting, and add soil amendments each season to make sure your soil stays healthy.
Plant Native Species
When choosing what to plant in your garden it’s best to consider what grows best in your climate. Find out your gardening zone, water requirements and the general microclimate of your area.
Choose plants from local nurseries that do best in your area. These will not only be easier to grow, but will also save you time and effort to grow a successful garden.
Create an Automatic Watering System
Watering is essential for plant growth and care. In creating an automatic watering system, it will ensure that your plants will receive the water they need without overwatering. A watering system will also make sure that your plants get watered at the right time.
Consider Not Planting a Lawn
Lawns are beautiful and great to walk on barefoot. However, they require a lot of water and maintenance. With weekly mowing, harmful chemicals and fertilizers to keep it green, lawns are tons of maintenance and aren’t great for the environment.
Choose to plant native grass species, ones that don’t grow too tall. This will save you weekends of mowing and tons of maintenance. You can also consider rock gardens or native bushes, trees and perennials that only require once or twice a year maintenance.
Prune Your Perennials in Fall and Winter
Make your life easier and prune all your plants at one time. Pruning encourages growth, and is best to do in the late fall or early winter. Getting it done at once will help you batch work, making it easier to manage.
During winter, wounded limbs are prone to infection, which means that diseases can develop even when the plant is dormant. Pruning during the winter will help you to ensure that diseases do not spread. Following these tips will allow you to grow healthy plants all year around.
Keeps Pests Away
To keep your garden lovely, it’s vital to keep bugs off your plants. For a homemade solution, try putting soapy water into a spray bottle, (you can use your regular dish soap). This solution will dehydrate bugs, ensuring that your plants stay safe.
Pyrethrum spray is another excellent option for tackling those pesky bugs. It’s made of dried chrysanthemum flowers, meaning that it’s the perfect natural solution. Another thing that you can do is add pepper to water and spray this on your bug-prone plants.
Remember, there are beneficial bugs too, so be sure not to harm or kill those bugs. For instance, pollinators such as bees and butterflies are crucial to any garden. Ladybugs are predator bugs that help keep harmful insects like aphids from destroying your plants.
Low Maintenance Weeding Options
Weeds are the worst part of gardening. They grow constantly, and without fail. There are many methods of growing that help curtail some weed growth: no till gardening, companion planting, planting grown cover, etc.
The best option is to visit your garden, pulling and spraying weeds. This will keep your garden healthy and thriving as your plants won’t have to compete for nutrients.
>>Related: Non-Toxic Weed Killer
Create Space For Your Plants
When creating a garden space, it’s vital to ensure that plants aren’t placed or grown too close together. When plants are crowded, they compete for everything from nutrients to water and light. Due to this, one or two of the plants may become weak, which means they are more prone to disease.
Keep this in mind when you are planting or arranging your potted plants in your space, as placing them too close together can also be harmful. Arranging your plants well helps to enhance the overall aesthetics of your garden.
Consider Companion Planting
Companion planting is the process of growing plants together that benefit one another. There are many different types of plants that can be helpful, and there are many that can be harmful.
For instance, marigolds can be added to your vegetable garden to help bring in pollinators and deter harmful insects. Certain herbs planted together can help provide protection and ensure healthier growth. Before planting anything in your garden, research what kind of plant it likes being near, and consider planting one of those as well.
>>Related: 9 Flowers You Should Plant In Your Vegetable Garden
Create a low maintenance gardening with these simple tips to keep your garden healthy and thriving. These low maintenance tips are a great way for a beautiful garden you can enjoy year and year without tons of work.
LOVE THIS POST? Check out this great guide to Planning a Spring Vegetable Garden. You may also want to read Simple Tips to Beautify Your Yard.
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