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5 Tips for a Low Maintenance Landscape

Most homeowners want beautiful lawns and gardens, but many people believe they are too busy. A thriving landscape can take time to maintain. However, by making low maintenance landscape choices, you can achieve incredible results with much less effort than you might think. Below are five tips for installing a low-maintenance landscape. The end result will be less upkeep and more time for enjoying your little slice of Eden.

1-Create Outdoor Living Spaces

One way you can achieve a low maintenance landscape is by creating livable outdoor spaces. These spaces can include some type of flooring or ground cover, seating, awnings, grilling equipment and decorative features.

If you really want to cut down on maintenance, consider creating a rock garden. Rock gardens aren’t difficult to make, and they can be made of stone, gravel or other natural aggregates. When carefully built, a rock garden will last for years with little maintenance other than occasional weed control.

2-Use Native Plants

Another way to cut down on maintenance tasks is to use native plants whenever possible. Native plants are naturally acclimated to the geography and will normally thrive without much additional watering and soil augmentation. Contact your local agricultural extension office for help in locating your specific soil type and plants that coordinate well with it.

3-Discover Xeriscaping

A great way to help lessen the amount of time you will spend maintaining your landscape is by xeriscaping. Simply put, xeriscaping is the practice of using plants that require minimal amounts of watering.

Don’t let the common misconception that xeriscapes are limited to a desert climate keep you from it. You can construct a xeriscape almost anywhere. Further, there are countless plant choices for xeriscaping, not just cacti. Many of these plants bear no resemblance to cacti or other stereotypical desert plants. Regardless of your location, you can create a beautiful, lush landscape with plants that need little watering.

Photo by David Baxter

4-Use Lots of Mulch

If a low-maintenance landscape appeals to you, then using an abundance of mulch is essential. Mulching prevents weeds from gaining a foothold in your landscape and also preserves moisture for your plants. It also fills in space, eliminating mowing, pruning or trimming maintenance.

Mulch is much like a canvas for your plants and provides a backdrop for homeowners to create their own special living “art.” You can choose from a wide variety of mulch types, including traditional mulch, pebbles, river stone, gravel and even chipped brick, for the purpose of achieving a particular look in your landscape.

5-Use Container Plants

Another way you can lighten your landscape maintenance load is by using container plants. Container plants remove the need to work the soil directly, and they effectively eliminate the need for weed control.

In addition, container plants are usually easy to move to new locations. This can be helpful in different seasons of the year when lighting and temperatures fluctuate. Not only that, but their portability makes container plants an asset when you get bored and want to change your landscape around a bit.

If you need landscape materials, Wilson Blacktop can provide them in bulk and deliver them right to your home. Be sure to contact us with any questions you may have about our products.