DIY landscape design. Light garden with unpretentious plants There is little left of the garden

Basic principles of a low-maintenance garden

Experience shows that organizing the territory of a suburban area and planting a garden is not so difficult. However, subsequent care for it often turns out to be an overwhelming task. How to make the site pleasing to the eye, but not turn into a place of hard labor?

It is clear that a “minimum care garden” does not at all mean the absence of owners on the site. Without systematic work, any, even the tiniest, piece of land will quickly turn into a real breeding ground for weeds and pests. Nevertheless, labor costs on the site should be rational - such as to free up additional time for rest and other easy activities.

Berry from the bush

If you want to relax at your dacha, then you should not plant fruit trees and shrubs. It is better to avoid raspberries and strawberries right away.

Caring for raspberries is not a pleasant task, but strawberries are an extremely labor-intensive crop. Regular pruning mustache and fertilizing - this is the least that a gardener will have to deal with. Trees require less hassle, but they will also have to be regularly protected from pests and ensure that the crown does not thicken.

In addition, the harvest that these crops will produce will need to not only be collected in a timely manner, but also processed. This means that you will have to sort and wash the berries, cut the fruits and stand at the stove all day and evenings to prepare preserves and jams. And here, you see, there’s no time for rest at all.

On a note

If you are determined to lay down a small orchard, then the basis of the assortment should be varieties adapted to growing in a given area. If you really want to pick a southern apple at your dacha, then it is better to graft a cutting of this variety into the crown of an ordinary “Antonovka”.

Less is more

The basis of the garden should be practically maintenance-free decorative foliage trees and shrubs, as well as conifers. But they are also not the same in terms of labor costs.

Thus, caring for a birch tree will be somewhat more difficult than caring for a chestnut tree, due to the difficulty of cleaning up the numerous falling leaves, drying out twigs and winged seeds. Shrubs such as elderberry, derens, bladderworts, barberries, snowberry, and Tatarian honeysuckle do not require any care at all.

On lilac, mock orange, spirea and hydrangea, you will need to periodically remove faded inflorescences and carry out anti-aging pruning. Privet, cotoneaster and hawthorn will be included in the black list - these shrubs require strong formative pruning.

Always beautiful

Those who do not want to work hard, but dream of beauty in their plot, should turn their attention to tree hydrangea and paniculata. They easily tolerate partial shade,
They don’t get sick, but they make their owners happy lush flowering from mid-summer, maintaining decorativeness until frost.

Today the choice of hydrangeas is very large.

Varieties vary in height, shape and density of inflorescences, surprising with a variety of colors and shades - from white, creamy cream and pink to dark burgundy. The bushes look great both in solitary and group plantings, for example in a mixborder next to lilacs, white-edged derains or dark cherry vesicles.

Which plants require less care?

The ranking of plants from least to most demanding care (from top to bottom) is as follows:

1. Coniferous trees
2. Lianas that do not require shelter for the winter
3. Decorative deciduous trees, bushes
4. Free growing hedges
5. Trimmed hedges
6. Fruit and berry crops (except raspberries and garden strawberries)
7. Perennial flowers and annuals that do not require annual digging
8. Perennial flowers that require annual digging and grow aggressively
9. Vegetables
10. Ground lawn
11. Garden strawberries and raspberries
12. Alpine slide and semi-aquatic plants
13. Plants in pots and hanging containers outdoors
14. Greenhouse and greenhouse plants

What's blooming in your garden?

No matter how much we dream of a garden that does not require our participation, without a flower garden we still cannot make do. If you do not want to bother with seedlings and constant watering, then it is better to refuse annuals, giving preference perennial plants. But their choice will need to be approached with special attention.

Candidates for the blacklist are tulips, dahlias and gladioli.

They need to be dug up annually, dried and carefully stored. Roses also don’t fit well with the concept of “minimal care.” The queen of the garden responds with lush blooms only to tender care. Phloxes and peonies, loved by everyone since childhood, require considerable effort and time.

All sorts of containers and hanging baskets. Plants in them dry out quickly and need systematic watering. Who will take care of them during your vacation?

Reasonable compromise

So what remains? Arrange a wide mixborder along a well-lit fence and feel free to include ornamental shrubs. An ideal addition to them would be daylilies, hosts and astilbes.

These plants are quite unpretentious, do not require frequent division, do not get sick and grow prettier year after year. The hosts will be especially pleased. But we need to find a place where they will feel comfortable. However, if you can’t imagine a garden without lush blooming peonies or the intoxicating aroma of roses, be sure to plant them.

At the end of the day, what counts as bereavement and what doesn’t is up to you to decide. As for vertical gardening, virgin grapes or honeysuckle honeysuckle would be a reasonable replacement for tender clematis. They will no less effectively decorate the wall of a house, gazebo, veranda or pergola, but will not require so much work.

Our advice

If you decide to plant conifers, then choose those species that do not burn in winter and do not need shading from bright spring sun. These will mainly be junipers with a bonfire-shaped crown, which overwinter under the snow, and thujas (the latter will have to be tied up for the winter).

Lawn without hassle

The lawn is not a pleasure for the lazy.

Properly preparing the soil for a lawn requires a lot of time, effort and patience. But in the future, the lawn will require systematic care. You will have to cut it every week, especially in rainy summers when the grass grows back very quickly.

And you will also have to constantly fight with dandelions - no matter how much you mow them, they grow back again and again. In general, you should think carefully about whether you need this headache? An alternative would be a clover lawn. Only you need to sow not pink clover, but white. It is not tall, does not lie down, creates a dense turf, does not get trampled and winters well.

Less weeding!

Weeding is a real scourge of any summer resident. To reduce the intensity of your weed battle, don't leave bare soil in your flower beds.

Mulch the areas between plants with shredded tree bark - no weeds will break through such a thick “blanket”. You can buy ready-made mulch at a garden center, but for large volumes it will be expensive.

To make bedding with your own hands on the farm, you will need a garden shredder, which is used to crush branches. Instead of mulch, you can add it to the flower garden ground cover plants. Over time, they will cover the free areas with elegant carpets that require virtually no maintenance.

How to reduce labor costs and time for garden care - tips

• Select adapted species and varieties that do not require care
• Provide plants with the right conditions for them
• Carry out maintenance activities in a timely manner
• Do not clutter the lawn with benches, stones, plants so that there are no obstacles for the lawn mower
• Lay a dividing strip of paving between the lawn and flower beds
• Mulch all free areas of land
• Pave part of the area: the more paving, the less maintenance
• On slopes near the steps, lay gentle ramps for the passage of wheelbarrows and lawn mowers. Take care of plants in the morning or evening.
• Avoid random and temporary plantings
• Combine various operations: digging - with the application of fertilizers, spraying - with foliar feeding

Also interesting articles you can read about the low maintenance garden

It is difficult to care for a garden when weeds appear on one side and the garden and paths are overgrown on the other. You water the garden in the morning, and by lunchtime everything is dry again. Fruit trees produce poor-quality harvests; strong winds cause the paths to become covered with leaves and twigs. Does a gardener have enough worries?

What plants should be used in plantings to reduce the required care? After all, in addition to weeding and mowing, you also need to water, feed, plant and harvest. Sometimes even small garden can be a big headache, especially if the site has been developed recently.

Absolutely all my customers imagine a low-maintenance garden as absolutely magnificent modern garden landscape style, where there is a minimum of artificial coverings, where plants do not require haircuts, fertilizing and preferably watering. Another condition is year-round decorativeness with lush flowering. Well, is it an easy task?

Of course, if you don’t want to cut, water and weed, then you should reconsider some points of your preferences. If you create landscape abundantly blooming garden without weeding and cutting, you will waste the designer’s work and your money. You cannot have a quality garden without proper care.

We clean houses, wash windows and floors, wash and iron. But before entering your house, both the guest and you first see the garden. This business card your house. Therefore, in order for a garden to look worthy of the money invested in it, it requires a lot of effort and time.

By definition, there are no fabulously blooming gardens without maintenance. If the plants die, produce few fruits, bloom sluggishly and for a short time, do not develop, and become bald, then the problem is not in the garden or in the selection of planting material, but solely in the lack of basic, but labor-intensive care.

Can we create a garden that we can actually relax and enjoy, instead of endless cleaning? There are ways (and quite a lot of them). They will allow you to minimize the cost of effort and time on the site, while maintaining its ideal appearance.

It won’t be cheap, but either we pay for convenience, or we work all weekend.

Planting material

First, let's look at the main culprit that creates most of the difficulties in gardening - planting material. These are fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs, annual and perennial flowers, as well as vegetables and berries. All these plants have their own special category of growth rate, growth area and care requirements.

For ease of care, plant location areas should be clearly demarcated. As a rule, the vegetable garden is located compactly, in a part of the site protected from the north wind and sufficiently illuminated. Plantings of trees and groups of plants are best placed along the perimeter of the site, creating a beautiful clearing of lawn.

I don't like to have trees and shrubs in the middle of my lawn. Firstly, it is more difficult to mow the lawn around the plants, secondly, the fragmentation of plantings leads to the complication of watering, and thirdly, deciduous plants will throw leaves and twigs directly onto the lawn, and removing the foliage, and even more so the fruits, is an extremely tedious task.

Plant growth zone
As I wrote above, each plant has its own growth zone, some grow aggressively, quickly filling the space allotted to them, while others are extremely reluctant to grow for the first five or six years of their life. To prevent the first plants from strangling the second, you should consider the zones of their location and fence off each planting zone in order to reduce the influence of some plants on others.

Growth limitation. Edges and borders
Let’s say that the Canadian spruce ‘Konica’, whose growth rate is extremely low, and damselfish, mantle, and euphorbia were planted in one mixborder. These aggressively growing perennials work well in semi-shady group plantings, but you just need to keep an eye on their growth each year.

To pacify and organize growth areas, plastic or metal edges. You should use edges that are more than 20 cm wide so that they protrude slightly from the ground.

Edges are good not only for separating mixborders. This method also works in the raspberry garden. Only, when creating a raspberry tree, you need to dig the plates as deep as possible. The edges will also help create the perfect line between the flower bed and the lawn. Through it, the lawn will never begin to grow into the flower garden, which means you will not have to trim its edge every year to make it look neat. There is a danger that without an edge, weeds from the flower garden will creep onto the lawn and it will begin to thin out from the edges, which will reduce its service life and decorativeness.

Selection of decorative elements
Everyone dreams of a beautiful garden. But, for some reason, when selecting ornamental plants the main attention is paid to their flowering. If we want to create a garden that is not troublesome, but very beautiful, we should give preference to decorative foliage plants rather than beautifully flowering ones. Better yet, 70% of the range of tree and shrub forms should consist of coniferous species.

We will add flowering through perennials, which do not clog the area so much with foliage, do not create inedible fruits that we do not need, and by the end of the season they are simply mowed down. Colors in the garden will create bright flowerpots with annual flowers.

Slow growing plants and their benefits
If you create a garden primarily from slow-growing plants, then you get plants that are very for a long time retain their shape without requiring a haircut. But it is best to take such plants as adults, otherwise you will have to enjoy a half-empty garden for 5-6 years. But the disadvantage of such plants is the high price for adult plants.

I really want a fruit garden, but I have to constantly remove fallen fruits. Is there a solution?
In one garden I saw a solution to this problem. Simple, convenient and, oddly enough, rare. The owner had always wanted to create a large decking patio, but since he had a lot of large old apple, plum and pear trees, he laid the decking around them. All the fruits fell on the deck, which was made at a slight slope towards the fence. There, the owner made a gutter where he swept away all the fallen fruits with a brush, and the remains were simply washed off with water from a hose. Thus, his patio was always clean, without wasps and the smell of sour fruit, and most importantly, without rotting fruits that could infect the soil around the tree with fungus.

Herbicides for weed control

For every gardener weeds in vegetable gardens and flower beds are a major problem. After all, removing them takes a lot of effort and time, which after working week I would like to spend it on vacation.

When weeds appear locally and in small quantities, this is nothing. But when you purchase a plot where you need to create a new garden, the most simple solution It may be necessary to use herbicides to destroy them.

Where and when can herbicides be used?
Eat different kinds herbicides, but for garden plots it is best to use organic, systemic penetration, continuous action. Such preparations mainly penetrate through the stomata of the leaf blades of all plants on which they were sprayed. When the sun sets, the plant begins to “inhale” the drug, which spreads throughout absolutely all its parts, and within one week it completely dies. After the weeds dry out, the plants are raked, burned, and the soil is plowed, lifting up the roots of plants that could survive.

This procedure is carried out on neglected areas in the spring in May, July and August-September, followed by plowing before winter. This way you will remove everything unnecessary, preventing unwanted germination of seeds that have had time to crumble. In the spring of next year, you can safely lay out the lawn and plant the necessary plants.

The herbicide should be selected depending on the type of overgrowth of the area. I always use “Tornado”, as it also applies to tree crops, which are always abundant in heavily overgrown areas.

Isn't it harmful?
Many gardeners are wary of using herbicides for fear of their harm to humans. If you do not spray the drug between plants in the garden, then there is nothing to fear. The preparations disintegrate in the soil after two weeks along with residues dead plants. And if you plant a garden the next year after pre-autumn tillage, then you don’t have to think about it at all.

It is better, of course, to be sure of the composition of the herbicide you are using. It is important that it does not contain heavy metals and harmful poisons. Use organic! They have a lesser effect, but do not accumulate harmful substances in the soil.

Rolled lawn instead of seed

What is a garden without a green lawn?! Walking barefoot on neatly trimmed grass, this is a summer resident's dream! But sometimes you think that such lawns exist only in England or America, which is shown to us on TV. In these countries, gardeners pay special attention to creating a lawn. They carefully and painstakingly grow it from the very seeds.

To achieve a thick, high-quality, dense cover of seed lawn, you need to take special care of it in the first two to three years. It is during this time that its roots form into a durable turf, which will delight the eye with its uniformity, softness, density and prevent the growth of weeds.

To do this, for the first year after sowing the seeds, do not walk on the lawn at all, otherwise it will damage the roots. Yes, the grass grows quite quickly, it will have to be cut, but it won’t be really thick yet. This lawn is cut every 10-14 days so that grass bushes form. Don’t forget about regular fertilizing, mandatory regular watering, and removing all fallen leaves, otherwise the lawn in these places will quickly turn yellow and bald patches will appear in which weeds can settle.

To make the turf thicker, the lawn is aerated by piercing it with special boots or a special roller with spikes.

Setting up a seed lawn is cheaper only at first, but in order for the garden to be perfect, it is better not to spend a lot of effort on correcting the flaws that are inevitable when caring for a seed lawn, and just lay a roll lawn.

Advantages of lawn type
Let's compare the construction of two types of lawn: roll and seed.

It seems to me that with a roll, things are simpler. Considering that we are creating a low-maintenance garden, this material is much more suitable for us, and the cost of its creation and maintenance in the future is even less than that of a seed lawn, and the quality is higher.

Selection of rolls in nurseries. Where do we save?
There are only TWO types of lawn. The first consists of 100% bluegrass, and the second fescue + bluegrass. 100% bluegrass is used for private landscaping. It is darker, more uniform and looks more terry.

A mixture of fescue and bluegrass is mainly used to line football fields, parks and other green areas where sufficient watering and careful maintenance are not expected. This kind of lawn is cheaper, it is lighter and less decorative, and it seems rougher in texture. But it is resistant to all the hardships of this world: the scorching sun, trampling, it can survive in dry summers without proper watering, although there will be dead areas.

For private landscaping, we still use 100% bluegrass. After all, we want a beautiful garden with uniform emerald grass? And there should be no problems with watering.

If you go to the nursery website lawn grass, you will see a list of different types with different prices. Remember one rule: there are only TWO types of lawn. The rest is just marketing tricks :)

If you see the names of its different varieties in a lawn mixture consisting of 100% bluegrass, don’t be fooled. Bluegrass is absolutely the same in all compositions. And even an expert won’t tell you the ratio, since the seeds are supplied with possible mis-grading.

Choose 100% bluegrass in the composition at the lowest price, and simply ignore additional information about whether it is a parterre lawn, shade-tolerant or something else. Thus, instead of 130 rubles per roll, you can pay 80. Knowing this, you can save a lot on installing a visually expensive lawn.

How we save
If you turn to lawn installation specialists who, together with their team, will buy and lay the lawn themselves, you will pay from 600 rubles per m². You will have to develop the soil yourself, but specialists will do everything else on their own.

The average price of a rolled bluegrass lawn is 100 rubles. In one square meter two rolls. That is, 200 rubles per m² if you install it yourself. Add to this a manual roller, which costs 8,000 rubles, but you can use a smooth barrel filled with water instead. Do the math for yourself. Of course, there are benefits, but you shouldn’t forget about the labor costs.

Vegetable garden with raised beds and paved paths

Creating a clean and hassle-free vegetable garden is not an easy task. Neat, framed raised beds framed by paved paths are a gardener's dream. But during creation you may encounter difficulties: weed control and loosening.

How to prepare the land? without using herbicides
When planting a vegetable garden, you can get rid of weeds without using herbicides in one season. Spread black agrospan over the entire area; it allows water to pass through and prevents plants from breaking through. One season will be enough for all the vegetation underneath to wither. If you use film, the soil underneath will become moldy due to insufficient ventilation, and you will then have to get rid of the fungus that will affect some crops. This is how I got rid of weeds in the greenhouse. The method has proven itself perfectly!

What are we making raised beds from?
Raised beds are best made from lightweight plastic. The frames are connected using self-tapping screws, so they can be easily removed so that you can move or plow the bed itself. If there is no plastic, then take boards. They will last for three years, but if you soak them up initially machine oil, then they will last 5 years, and no more is needed, during this time you will still want to move something in the garden.

Pros and cons of raised beds
Among the advantages I can note nice view, cleanliness, a neat edge without weeds, besides, in raised beds the soil heats up faster, which means the plants develop faster, in addition, it is more convenient to work in such beds.

The downside is that you can’t make very many of these beds; you have to remove the frames while plowing, and you have to dig with a shovel very carefully so as not to dump soil on the path.

How to make paths to prevent weeds from growing
At the base of any path in the garden you need to lay any geomaterial, be it agrospan or geotextile. You can already sprinkle or lay whatever your heart desires on them. The advantage of such fabrics is that if you use wood chips or crushed stone (preferably wood chips), then, if necessary, you can always simply roll up the path, pour everything off it and move it to another place. If you want to make paths from tiles, it is better to take geotextiles.

Automatic watering and autofertilization

Half the time spent caring for a garden is watering. Ideally, it is better to water before or after the sun begins to burn, that is, watering time occurs in the early morning or in the evening, when after summer heat I just want to sit in the garden and relax, enjoying the evening coolness.

Thoroughly made automatic watering of the entire site will radically change your leisure time in summer season. It will cost a lot, but from experience I can say that you definitely don’t need to save on such things. If something in the system fails, there will be no problems. I always work with Hunter and RainBird systems (made in the USA). In my opinion, this is the best reliable equipment that can be used on the site without worrying that anything will get covered.

Automatic watering system
Modern automatic irrigation is not just water flowing through pipes and watering the area through sprinklers. This is first and foremost a complex system led by a computer that programs watering on the required day and at the right time, these are rain sensors that do not allow water to be wasted, this solenoid valves, I distribute obt watering throughout the entire area, these are filters that prevent the sprinklers from clogging, and, of course, this is a large system of hoses and connections different types and diameters.

Any system of such irrigation must be carefully thought out. For ease of use, it is better to divide plantings into zones. Do not plant plants in the middle of the lawn, since not every Christmas tree is useful to be sprayed regularly, but the lawn needs it.

Different zones require different frequency of watering, so using a computer is extremely convenient to program all this for the entire season.

Types of irrigation
For various types there are plants various ways water delivery. Drip irrigation is an economical irrigation that is widely used in vegetable gardens and greenhouses. Regular watering during the hot day can cause burns on the leaves. vegetable crops, and if you organize a drip, there will be no problems.

It takes a long time to water, but the water consumption is very low and exactly for the bush that is needed, this way there will be significantly fewer weeds and there will be no puddles. This type of watering is good for group plantings. In order to avoid sprinkling the plants every time, delivering moisture directly to the root will reduce water consumption and improve the quality of watering.

Surface irrigation is pole irrigation, which is suitable for large areas, and rotary and sprinkler irrigation, which is suitable for lawns and flower beds. Effectively moisturizes, but they are not convenient for watering narrow strips of flower beds among paving, near the house, gazebos and other hard-to-reach areas.

Root or subsoil irrigation is presented in the form of a perforated corrugated hose with small holes through which moisture enters the soil.

The water consumption is higher than with drip, but, firstly, the hose is buried and is not visible, and secondly, it moisturizes in all hard-to-reach places without puddles and without dirt.

This type of irrigation works great together with drip irrigation in group plantings. If under trees and bushes we use drip irrigation, then we place the basal one among the perennials. Of course, they can be watered using surface watering, but some perennials are so tall that moisture does not always penetrate through them to smaller ones located in the background.

Improving the quality of plant growth with regular watering of the entire area
When all the plants in your garden receive enough moisture, your problems with wilting and premature falling of leaves disappear, the need to cut out yellowed and withered parts of perennials decreases, and you don’t need to worry about the quality of the harvest.

By the way, using the same irrigation system you can fertilize the necessary areas without any problems. A stationary barrel is mounted into the system, in which you dilute water with fertilizer, lower the water supply hose into it, select which zone needs to be fertilized and simply start the system. No more buckets and sore backs.

How much can automatic watering cost?
For a plot of 10 acres automatic system watering the brands that I wrote above, with a computer and everything you need, will cost about 300,000-400,000 rubles. This amount will include everything: design, installation work (and there is a lot of it!) and the equipment itself, wires, hoses and fittings, plus setting/programming of all valves.

I told you it won't be cheap. But what can you do for a free summer holiday?

Robot lawn mower, trimmer or scooter?

So, we laid the lawn, equipped it with irrigation, and now our lawn is growing lush and thick. What is the best way to mow so as not to harm either the watering equipment or the lawn itself?

I’ll say right away that the trimmer is used ONLY in narrow and hard-to-reach places for a regular lawn mower: under the fence, around fences, along the walls of the house, gazebos and retaining walls. Never, under any circumstances, touch the lined surface with the trimmer. rolled lawn. Uneven mowing will damage the canopy structure. In some places where a lot has been cut it will fade and bald spots will appear, in others it will begin to spike. A trimmer can damage sprinklers, and each of them costs about 1,000 rubles. This device is not for mowing open areas of the lawn. For this would be better suited any self-propelled lawn mower.

Most lawn mowers are equipped with bags to collect chopped grass, which obviously needs to be collected and can then be used as fertilizer or dried as mulch. On hot days, mulch left on the lawn will help protect it from scorching. Of course, with her he won’t seem so terry and emerald, but it’s better yellow color freshly burnt lawn.

During the season you need to mow every 7-10 days and it takes quite a long time. And since our task is to create a lazy and maximally independent garden, it is worth paying attention to modern developments.

The robotic lawn mower, an analogue of the home robot vacuum cleaner, is gaining more and more popularity. They have a base on which they are cleaned and charged independently; laser or cable limiters highlight the cleaning area.

In America and European countries, bases for recharging robots are made in the form of stones or decorative houses. By the way, the edges separating the lawn from the flower beds will provide you with an invaluable service, serving as a natural limiter.

Robotic lawn mowers do not mow quickly, but constantly, maintaining the lawn at one point of growth. The working days are programmed on the robot itself. He works in any weather, even in the rain. And the price for this miracle of technology varies from 50,000 to 100,000 depending on the brand and the required mowing area.

Again, not cheap, but you will completely forget about the need to mow the lawn once a week and collect long cut blades of grass from it. After all, the robotic lawn mower mulches the grass so much that it goes into the ground every other day, improving the quality of the turf.

Mulch: crushed stone, sawdust, wood chips, needle cones

Mulch is a material that is sprinkled on the soil to prevent it from drying out excessively, reduce the growth of weeds, decorate spilled surfaces and protect plants.

Advantages and disadvantages
In our case, a huge advantage is that we fill up all the open soil between our plantings. If we use slow-growing trees and shrubs in a low-maintenance garden, then there should be a lot of empty space between them; if the space is not planted with annuals, mulch will be ideal.

There are significantly fewer weeds growing; mulch does not prevent them from growing cultivated plants, it fertilizes the soil and protects it from rapid drying out. Also mulching tree trunk circles protects root collar from early frosts. If you use wood chips, cones, pine needles, sawdust, then, as they rot, they will fertilize the soil, but there is a minus - the soil oxidizes and you will have to keep an eye on its acidity.

Preparing the soil for filling different materials
For organic mulch (chips, sawdust, etc.) no soil preparation is required, just level the surface and remove weeds. Using decorative crushed stone, polished glass and decorative stones, it is necessary to line each plant with any geomaterial, otherwise the soil will deteriorate, and it will be easier to remove the filling. The disadvantage of such backfilling is that you will have to leave the area where the plant should grow unfilled, but the advantage is that it will not grow beyond this zone. Another disadvantage of such filling is that the soil will become compacted over time.

Material prices
For sections, you can purchase material either by the whole machine in bulk or in large bags of 50 or 100 liters. Prepackaged materials, as a rule, cost one and a half to two times more than bulk material.

Ordinary wood chips of natural color cost about 110-150 rubles per 50-liter bag. Dyed mulch will cost from 300 to 500 rubles for the same bag. And sawdust (curly shavings) is given away free of charge at wood processing stations; you can also load fine sawdust at sawmills for free. The main thing is to bring truck. Those who sell sawdust online do just that, just shh...

Neutralize the soil
With long-term use of mulch in the form of sawdust, cones and pine needles, after a few years the acidity of the soil will increase. Since not all plants prefer acidic soils, they will have to be deacidified. This is usually done once every three to four years. There are several ways to deoxidize the soil:

1. Use lime fertilizer. This will easily reduce the acidity of the soil and activate the proliferation of beneficial microorganisms.
2. Some people use chalk instead of fertilizer. It is less aggressive, but harder to apply.
3. In addition to deoxidation, dolomite flour can enrich the soil with some minerals.

These are the most effective ways to deoxidize the soil, which sometimes needs to be done in any garden.

Creating paths with integrity

Paths and platforms are used to create almost all gardens. Mostly paving stones, tiles or natural stone are used.

This part of creating a garden is almost always the most expensive. It takes from one quarter to one third the cost of creating the entire site. Due to the high cost of installing tracks in middle lane In Russia, many are trying to save money by reducing the required area and simplifying the construction of the road cushion. But after this, literally in the first three years, the first troubles begin to emerge in the form of overgrowth, cracking and sagging.

Since we want to create a garden that requires a minimum amount of maintenance, we do everything once and correctly. The coverage should be sufficient for parking, circling and short routes.

Standards for the road trough “pie”
Of course, you shouldn’t skimp on a bed of sand and crushed stone. The thicker these layers are, the better the quality of the canvas. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the design of a tiled walkway.

Heated paths
Many summer residents do not come to their Vacation home in winter, because you will have to dig it out first... In general, how do you spend your weekends in the winter on the site?

Personally, my neighbors bought rotary snow blower because they were tired of shoveling heavy snow. But in winter you really want to come for the weekend and enjoy your vacation no less than in summer. Admire the winter coniferous garden and walk along dry and clean paths. And this is quite possible!

Nowadays it is often practiced to use heated tracks. It comes in two types: electric and water.

The essence of installation and device is the same as in warm floors. If you choose an electric filament for heating, there will be a temperature sensor on it, on which the heating intensity will depend.

Though electric heating, easier to install, and is popular, many use water heating systems from gas boiler. And here the installation principle is the same as for heated floors in the house. PVC hoses of special strength are used and laid in a snake pattern along the entire length. With them, the layer of screed on top will be a little thicker, but, as a rule, there is no visual difference. For thermoregulation, external sensors are used, which are connected to the boiler so that it distributes the temperature evenly and according to the weather.

In principle, installation is easy in both cases, the main thing is to make sure that everything is in working order and without damage before installation.

Water runoff from paths
When constructing paths, they often do not maintain the required slope, guided by the fact that their width is small and the water will somehow go away. And when the water does not go away on its own, the tile surface begins to collapse due to standing puddles. Thin tiles burst and paving stones fall out. To prevent this from happening, be sure to ensure that when creating paths, a slight slope in one direction is maintained.

On the side of the path, where there will be a slope, it is good to make a small concrete gutter for storm drainage. This will protect the track cushion from washing away.

We are not shy about coverage areas
Sometimes, to save money, it is necessary to reduce the coverage area, but this is not always for the benefit of the site. Remember: there must be at least one and a half parking spaces on your site. This is done so that you can walk or ride a bicycle around the car. Also on the site there must be a path that unites all the main places of residence: the house, recreation areas, technical structures, vegetable garden Often such paths are created in the form of a circular route. To save money, lay out shorter routes with step tiles or natural stone. This will fit organically into any landscape and protect the lawn and flower beds from trampling.

So, let's summarize my article. A garden is never without troubles, but troubles can be one-time (during its creation) or weekly (until the end of its existence). Our task is to make the garden work independently. The garden is watered by itself, the lawn is cut by itself, the plants are fertilized themselves, the paths get rid of water and snow themselves, and weeds and cutting plants are such rare occurrences that they will not cause too much trouble. Such a garden is IDEAL and will bring into your life what a real Garden of Eden should bring - peace, tranquility and relaxation.

Do you want to create a beautiful low-maintenance garden or a garden for the lazy? Or a low-maintenance decorative garden, or a new garden? There are a great many ideas for creating and naming such a garden, and it doesn’t matter what they call it, the main thing is that such a garden is beautiful, well-groomed and does not take much time to maintain.

The topic of creating such a garden is not new; the question of it is regularly raised in gardening literature, on the Internet on thematic websites, and on video channels. It is even possible that some of you have already tried to arrange such a garden on your site, but something did not work out.

We would like to warn you right away that creating such a garden without effort and a well-thought-out plan will not work. Moreover, every stage of creating such a garden is important.

In order to rest later, you must first try!

What is a low maintenance garden

Let's try to figure it out, take into account the advice of the guru on this issue, in order to achieve this dream "low maintenance decorative garden" implement it on your site.

A beautiful garden for the lazy is a garden in which golden mean between gardening chores and the pleasure of relaxing in nature, meeting with loved ones and friends away from the bustle of the city.

Most gardeners who come to their suburban areas only on weekends, they want to relax and communicate with family and friends. If you care for plants, do it with pleasure, and not through force. Don't waste time on gardening work which have no end: weeding, watering, mowing, etc. But also bright, spectacular, well maintained garden continues to be the dream of many gardeners. How to create a garden where there is time not only for endless work, but also for relaxation? Is it possible for gardening chores to be enjoyable?

We can reassure you: dreams of a beautiful, and at the same time unpretentious, garden can be realized.

What you need to know when creating a low-maintenance garden

IN garden practice There are many techniques and methods that reduce the time and effort spent on plant care. Such techniques will help maintain, and some even improve appearance your garden.

So where does it start? creating a low-maintenance decorative garden?

First of all, you need to correctly determine the initial state of the site. You need to find out:

• — soil type and acidity;
• — groundwater level;
• - flat area or with a slope;
• - direction of prevailing winds;
• — location of the site relative to the cardinal directions;
• - the location of well-lit areas, as well as areas in the shadow of buildings and trees.

One of the principles of planting any garden, especially a low-maintenance one, is to select plants specifically for the conditions that you have, and not vice versa, otherwise it will be very difficult for you to achieve the maximum decorative effect from the plants. If you plant plants that prefer bright sun in the shade, those that prefer acidic soil - in sandy soil, those that require minimal watering - in lowlands, etc., then at best your beautiful flowers and shrubs will not bloom, and at worst they may die. Therefore, you need to determine all these characteristics of your site.

If you are the owner of an old, neglected garden, then in this case you will need to remove excess vegetation and rejuvenate such a garden. This is a topic for a separate article; we will look at it a little later.

Low maintenance garden - plant selection

The plants in our garden need the most attention: they need to be weeded, watered, fed, and pruned. And if the plants do not overwinter well in the ground, then they need to be dug up for the winter or covered. Annual plants need to be planted every spring. Therefore, it is very important to choose the right plants for your garden.

The main principles of selecting plants for a low-maintenance garden

Calculation of plant needs

There is no need to buy everything you see in garden stores and nurseries. No matter how attractive the plant is, the more plantings, the more time it takes to care for them. A garden with many flower beds and various compositions of trees and shrubs looks very beautiful. But only if they are well-groomed and not overgrown with weeds, or suffer from lack of watering and fertilizing.

To care for a large number of plants, you will have to deal with them all day long.

Wise choice of plants

Many gardeners mistakenly believe that unpretentious garden plants They are inconspicuous and ugly and should not be planted in a beautiful garden. This is wrong! Now there is such a huge selection of very beautiful, but absolutely unpretentious plants that by planting such plants, you can create beautiful garden, which will be a pleasure to care for.

Among such unpretentious plants there are also everyone’s favorite gardeners - hydrangeas, roses, clematis.

Basis beautiful garden for the lazy, there should be local unpretentious plants that have adapted to the given climate. Specialized literature will help determine which plants are able to withstand the critical conditions of a particular time of year. Plants of the 2nd and 3rd climatic zones are best adapted to the harsh conditions of the Russian winter. Plants of the 2nd zone can withstand frosts down to -45°C, plants of the 3rd climate zone- up to -40°C. These plants will survive the winter well and will not require tedious covering in late autumn;

With beautifully flowering shrubs, you need to pay attention to which shoots the plant blooms on: last year or the current one. In case of a frosty winter, last year's shoots may freeze and such a plant will not bloom. Therefore, in a low-maintenance garden, it is preferable to plant shrubs that bloom on the shoots of the current year. The ability of plants to bloom on certain shoots depends on the variety (written on the box with the seedling; if not, ask the seller).

We will talk in more detail about choosing unpretentious plants in the next article. “How to choose the right plants for a low-maintenance ornamental garden”

But in our gardens there are also plants that need extra care and attention. There should be a minimum number of such plants, or not at all. Of course, we are not talking about collectors of garden curiosities. Such enthusiastic people are happy to “babysit” such plants, they like it. But our article is for the ordinary gardener, whom we guide in what ways you can make your life easier in terms of garden care.

So, if you want to reduce the time spent on gardening, you should reduce the number or not plant the following plants:

1. Capricious heat-loving plants

As a rule, they do not winter well, they need to be covered, and in the spring they take a long time to “come to their senses.” Decorative effect There is little benefit from such plants, but they must always be taken care of. Their existence turns into a constant struggle for survival.

1. Perennials that require digging up for the winter

   Dahlias, gladioli, crocosmias, freesias, callas, and cannas require annual digging and storage under certain conditions. Even the most devoted lovers of these plants will get tired of endlessly planting them and digging them up in the fall. Choosing a place to store them also becomes a problem.

2. Plants that require special soil

   Mostly sour - for azaleas, hydrangeas, blueberries, etc. 2-3 plants, for which you need to bring special soil, will not require much effort, but planting a much larger number is labor-intensive and problematic.

Followers of the Naturgarden style, to which T.I. Grishchenkova considers herself, avoid exotic plants, which must be carried around like a sack: dug out for the winter, protected, cherished and shaken over them.

Garden design for the lazy step by step instructions

When the plants are selected, you need to place them correctly.

Certainly, garden design This is a whole science, and specialists study for many years before acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. And it is not possible to place all the recommendations in one article, so we will define the basic principles of placing plants in a low-care garden, examining the most important issues in more detail in the following articles.

To create a beautiful garden for the lazy, it is best to use a combination of decorative deciduous plants with beautiful blooming ones.

It is necessary to determine the skeleton of the site - to correctly position the bushes and trees.

Inexperienced gardeners, trying to create a garden that blooms all season, plant an endless amount of beautiful flowering plants. Such plants

Firstly need to be selected in such a way as to create a “blooming conveyor belt”,

Secondly, it happens that they do not bloom (as a rule, they are more demanding of care),

Thirdly, more plants– more and care for them.

And by combining spectacular, but unpretentious decorative deciduous plants with beautifully flowering ones, you can create a garden that is less problematic, but no less beautiful.

Decorative foliage plants for the garden

Decorative foliage plants There are many: they come with textured or lacy foliage, and with leaves that change color during the season, and with beautiful fruits. Such plants are decorative throughout the season. They, as well as unpretentious conifers, are taken as the basis for compositions. And beautifully blooming ones are added to achieve the full effect.

1. Post everything architectural forms and objects in rounded groups. This will make your work much easier, because when mowing you won’t have to go around every bush.
2. When planting, take into account the growth rate of plants, otherwise one more aggressive plant, growing, can strangle another, growing much more slowly;
3. For a low-maintenance garden, choose the slowest growing varieties. Fast-growing plants require mandatory and timely annual pruning, sometimes radically.
4. Then add to the shrubs and trees herbaceous plants– perennial and annual flowers. You just need to think over the composition, because some may bloom for a short time, others will lose their decorative effect by mid-summer, and for others, the stem will gradually become bare at the bottom. And in compositions, with the correct selection of plants, decorative properties plants appear more strongly and “shade out” imperfections;
5. According to designers, the optimal ratio for planting flower beds is 60% perennial flowers and 40% annuals; of course, these figures are approximate. This ratio allows you to create a bright and long-blooming flowerbed with minimal care;
6. Choose varieties that do not require preliminary germination, bloom for a long time and elegantly, and reproduce independently the following year: poppy, annual flax, cornflower, toadflax, calendula, eschscholzia, cosmos. Or sow fast-growing and unpretentious flowers at the seedling stage: dahlias (annual), nasturtiums, marigolds, lavatera.
7. Be sure to consider growing a lawn. An ordinary, traditional lawn requires frequent mowing and more careful care at first. And here Moorish lawn or a lawn that includes white clover does not require regular maintenance.

Ground cover plants ( Duchesnea , creeping tenacious, bryozoan) require little maintenance, make it difficult for weeds to grow, and require mowing much less frequently than a classic lawn, or do not need it at all. With the help of these plants you can create a wonderful green lawn.

Creating a garden easy care can be produced using artificial surfaces: gravel fill, paved areas. In the gardens with large areas this is even more relevant than growing a lawn. And it is much easier to care for such modern surfaces, and they look very impressive.

Another effective technique is mulching plantings organic materials (chopped branches, bark, fallen leaves, mown grass, etc.). This technique allows you to fight weeds, create optimal conditions growing for plants, as well as creating original compositions. Just remember that the bark coniferous species acidifies the soil, which is not suitable for all plants.

There is little time for work, but an extra hour for rest

Why do many of us have dachas? So that you can go with your family and friends in good weather and have a pleasant rest, or to change the city environment for an ecologically clean natural landscape during the summer holidays and also indulge in blissful idleness.

However, we often fail to do this, because there are always a lot of urgent matters on the site, and if the garden is also decorative, it may require even more effort and time to care for it. And instead of the required rest, you simply have to change the type of work activity. However, things may not be so sad if you approach your gardening activities wisely.

The main thing is to properly organize your site so that it looks beautiful and does not require special care. That's why low maintenance garden- This is, first of all, a properly organized garden. All plants in it are selected and arranged in such a way as to create the illusion of a natural landscape. Naturally, with this approach, green spaces are given maximum freedom for life, and gardeners, in turn, have a lot of free time. This “a la naturel” landscape will require a lot of effort only at the creation stage, but then you will need to pay very little attention to it as needed.

Great Green Settlement

The first year of a garden’s life is especially labor-intensive: from its establishment to the beginning of winter “hibernation” of plants. Here we can highlight several important stages: marking the site into zones, selecting green spaces, their zonal placement, initial watering and fertilizing, monitoring growth and development, removing unestablished elements, autumn cleaning and temporary shelter winter cold. Undoubtedly, the most difficult step is the selection of green tenants. It must be carried out carefully, slowly and with skill, otherwise the minimum care garden risks never being born or will require too much care.

The best place to start is by creating a hedge - the sooner you plant it, the faster it will grow and obscure the work going on in your garden while the rest of the plants develop. In addition, it will well protect its more delicate brothers from wind, dust, street noise and harmful exhaust gases, thereby creating a comfortable microclimate. Viburnum, mountain ash, lilac, mock orange, honeysuckle, and climbing species: maiden grapes, climbing rose, ivy. In addition to practical ones, they will also have aesthetic benefits - many of them bloom beautifully and smell fragrant, and rowan and viburnum will delight the eye with bright fruits.

By retreating from the fence deeper into the site, we can take care of the more delicate green inhabitants low maintenance garden- flowers. Beautiful, but capricious gladioli, tulips and hyacinths are not suitable for us; among bulbous ones, we should prefer no less attractive, but more unpretentious daffodils, crocuses, scillas, galanthus - they can live in the same place for many years, do not require weeding and feeding, and the variety of varieties allows you to admire their flowering from early spring to late autumn. It is worth choosing a sunny piece of land for them, since they are light-loving.

Include in the list of flower crops suitable for planting in low maintenance garden, you can also use lilies - some of their varieties do not require increased care and frequent replanting. Also suitable are lilies of the valley, irises, delphiniums, and phlox. And in order to protect yourself from weed control, the soil between the plants should be mulched.

Perennials will fit perfectly into our time- and energy-saving garden: they are beautiful, bloom most of the year, and do not require special feeding or special replanting. These are representatives of the flora such as hostas, lungwort, fern, bergenia and many, many others, because their list is quite wide.

Less work, easier worries

There are a few other tricks that will allow you to reduce energy costs when caring for your garden. For example, it is worth remembering that it is better to plant plants in groups, connecting them according to similar preferences for soil conditions, the level of its acidity, humidity levels, the degree of shading of the area, etc.

In addition, it is better to opt for varietal adapted types of flora or local green spaces. Exotics, as a rule, are too capricious and demanding, and in low maintenance garden no good.

To avoid having to level the edges of flower beds and lawns every time, it is best to line their borders decorative stone or tiles. And it looks more beautiful and neat. And if you experiment with different materials, you can make a very original composition, which from year to year will also require only basic trimming, and not any radical transformations.

It should also be remembered that there is no such thing as a garden without any maintenance. If you don’t devote at least a little of your time to him, then even the most correct organized site will soon turn into impassable jungle. So isn’t it better to put in just a little bit of effort - the very minimum, so that you can then enjoy a well-deserved and pleasant vacation against the backdrop of a naturally beautiful natural landscape, with the pleasure of knowing that you also had a hand in creating this beauty.

Unpretentious flowers will help create a garden for relaxation. If you don’t have enough time, you are busy at work and at home, but you want to occasionally come to the garden and admire the bright flower beds, choose unpretentious flowers.

Unpretentious flowers - a bright, well-kept garden without the hassle

There are people who are passionate about their garden, who like to grow interesting, sometimes rare plants, constantly look after them, admire and be proud of them, people who spend a lot of time on their plot, constantly weeding, watering, planting, digging, trimming, pruning, etc. etc., people to whom this activity brings a lot of pleasure and joy. And how nice it is to enter such a garden, where every corner is made with love.

But not everyone manages to find enough time for their plot due to being very busy at work and at home. And for some, gardening chores simply do not evoke much enthusiasm and the garden is perceived as a place where you can relax in nature with friends or family, “at a barbecue” or in a hammock. But, even if you visit your site very rarely, you still want to see it not overgrown with weeds, but beautiful and blooming. And it is possible. You just need to choose the right plants for your garden, from those that require a minimum of care, and which, despite this, are able to remain decorative throughout the season.

Be sure to plant in your garden, choosing ones that suit your climate and do not require regular trimming. They will make hedges that will help delimit your garden into zones, and beautiful flowering shrubs can be planted in groups or individually in the middle of the lawn or in a flowerbed as solo plants.

Instead of a regular lawn, which is quite labor-intensive to care for, sow a lawn of white creeping clover or trampling-resistant ground cover plants.

For vertical landscaping on an arch, wall or pergola, plant or hops. True, hops are quite an aggressive plant, so if you decide to plant it, you should limit its spreading by digging plastic or iron plates into the soil. But girlish grapes, in my opinion, are more decorative and less aggressive, so it’s still better to opt for them.

Of course, the main decoration of the garden is. And the hassle-free garden is no exception. The basis of the so-called flower bed for the lazy are unpretentious perennial flowers. As for annual flowers, it is quite difficult to create bright, long-blooming flower beds without them, but it is quite possible to select types of annual flowers that do not require special care and tedious cultivation of seedlings that can be planted directly in open ground. When purchasing flower seeds, pay attention to information on growing conditions, and not just beautiful picture and never buy different mixtures of colors.

Perennial unpretentious flowers:

Among perennials, you need to select drought-resistant plants that do not require regular watering. In addition, it is advisable to choose perennials that can grow in one place, without requiring division and replanting, for at least more than 5 years.

In sunny and slightly shaded places, plant herbaceous, tansy,. For shaded areas, for example, or.

Annual unpretentious flowers:

Among the annual plants, you need to choose drought-resistant plants that can be planted directly in open ground; it would be good if they self-seeded and subsequently sown themselves :). You can recommend, for example, and.

Bulbous unpretentious flowers:

Even if you have limited time, you can keep your garden beautiful so that on rare visits you can enjoy the next bloom of various flowers. Of course, even unpretentious plants need minimal care. Be sure to water them well if you have already arrived. Water them at least once before they grow. To make weeding easier, use special devices– weed pads or you can use modern methods weed control - chemicals. Feed the plants with complex fertilizer at least once a season.

By choosing the right plants and planting them in accordance with the growing conditions necessary for them, it is quite possible to minimum costs time and effort to create a paradise for outdoor recreation. That's what I wish for you.