Do-it-yourself garden with minimal care - what to plant and how to arrange it. DIY landscape design Beautiful garden plot with minimal maintenance

Beautiful, well maintained garden With early spring until late autumn - here it is, a dream! But spending all your free time digging in the garden and caring for the lawn every weekend is a dubious pleasure.

However, you can make your garden attractive and cozy without putting in too much effort. The main thing is to plan wisely garden landscape and choose plants that are ideal for each other and do not require special attention.

Editorial today "So simple!" will tell you how to plant a beautiful garden with your own hands. All necessary instructions and photos are included!

Garden for the lazy

It is much easier to maintain a neat, well-groomed garden english style. A little careless, as if slightly neglected, with its free layout it is much easier to maintain than an impeccable French one.

The fewer flower beds there are in the garden, the easier it is to care for the garden. There are many colorful shrubs that change foliage color with the seasons. Their colors change from early autumn until the onset of cold weather.

Such shrubs include Thunberg barberry, cotoneaster, cinquefoil, and holly mahonia. Mahonia is valued not only for its beautiful foliage, but also for its tasty small berries, which are good both in baking and in compotes.

A garden without flowers is not a garden. Lay out a large area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe plot for a lawn on which you can mix clover, daisies, tenacious - all those unpretentious flowers that cover the ground with a carpet. In addition, these flowers tolerate cutting well, so you can get rid of weeds with a lawn mower.

A front garden blooming in lush colors will create the impression of a richly landscaped area. The rest of the area can be planted with bushes and sowed lawn grass. In an atmosphere of slight negligence, mixborders with a random arrangement of plants look great.

For mixborders, select plants that are well adapted to the conditions of our climate. Combine shrubs with foliage different color and size so that the garden is good even when not in bloom.

Terraces and retaining walls diversify appearance plot with a difference in landscape. Pave part of the lawn decorative tiles- another great solution. The hassle of caring for the area will be much less.

High-quality ones will make gardening easier and faster. For example, a gas trimmer will cut grass and weeds where a regular mower would necessarily cut through low-growing bushes.

To prevent the soil from becoming clogged between plantings, cover it with decorative mulch (for example, bark). Non-woven material sprinkled with gravel will cover the ground and solve the age-old problem of weeding.

Annuals planted as seedlings are a waste of time. Pay attention to self-seeded flowers such as eschscholzia, poppy, cornflowers, toadflax, calendula and flax. These flowers bloom brightly, wildly and do not require prior germination.

The natural shapes that characterize the soil in your region will give your garden a rustic charm. The most common garden chamomile will decorate any garden and additionally bind the soil, thereby protecting it from being washed out. Chamomile blooms for a long time and is resistant to heat and drought.

Flowering shrubs will relieve you of the need to care for your garden almost completely. Bushes planted around the perimeter of the garden, near fences and buildings will create a picturesque view. Lilacs and rose hips will fit perfectly into any garden, the only thing is that lilacs require pruning of faded clusters.

This dry garden if you live in the desert or steppe, coastal garden if your site is located in a wetland; forest corner if your garden is in a wooded area; abandoned wild garden, if you got exactly this one, rockery, if your terrain is rocky or the site is located on a slope, moorland, if the site is a wasteland. It is clear that using existing resources and conditions, working “together with nature, and not contrary to it,” is much simpler and more logical than fighting windmills, trying to change the existing natural landscape. But you will have to “fight” constantly.

Unpretentious plants in the right places

Grow in a practical, easy-to-care garden unpretentious native or well-zoned plants. The unpretentiousness of a plant is primarily determined by its sufficient drought and cold resistance for your area. Such a plant does not require watering even in hot summers and the construction of special labor-intensive winter shelters.

To the category of practical and unpretentious plants also include local aromatic and medicinal plants, naturalized bulbous(daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops, cold-resistant cyclamens, scillas, colchicums, hazel grouse, crocosmia and others, depending on your region). To naturalize these plants in your garden, plant the bulbs in a suitable location and simply leave them alone. The plants will begin to live their usual seasonal life in your garden.

Avoid plants and elements garden design, which, on the contrary, will require constant attention and care. These include plants in hanging baskets and small containers, formal flower beds and hedges, topiary, and lawns. Instead of the latter, sow the lawn with thyme, chamomile or clover; in the shade, use moss instead of grass; Place gravel, tiles, or boardwalk next to the house.

Lush greenery or structure and order

The choice of vigorously growing or, on the contrary, slowly growing perennials depends on whether you want lush natural greenery on the borders or, on the contrary, consistency and order. The same applies to annuals and biennials that actively reproduce by self-sowing. I like poppies sleeping pills and self-seeding, so I leave the most beautiful specimens(usually black), and then I scatter the seeds from a mature capsule over the flower bed. I do the same with the forget-me-nots in the back "natural" part of my garden. If you find it difficult to control self-seeding, it is better not to have such plants at all, because they spread throughout the garden like weeds.

To quickly cover large areas of your garden with greenery, use ground cover flowers and plants.

Plants that are beautiful all year round

Good for lung garden care plants that look good not just one, but two or three seasons a year (ideally all year round). Compare rowan or mahonia, which are interesting and beautiful in all four seasons, with lilac or mock orange. Yes, the latter bloom charmingly and are very fragrant, but their flowering lasts 2 weeks, and these trees spend the rest of the year looking monotonous. It is especially important to select plants that are beautiful all year round, those who have small gardens or space on the site is strictly limited.

Less is more

Don’t rush to plant every plant square meter garden or replace immediately dead plant for something new. Firstly, existing plants will certainly grow over time. Secondly, save money and labor, because we create easy care garden. Thirdly, it is good when the garden has some structure that is provided harmonious combination different elements. There is a place for fullness and emptiness, soft and hard textures, bright colors plants and the darkness of the soil or the monotony of the mulch.

Instead of plant variety, focus on quality and repeatability. Plant at least 3-5 specimens of the same perennial side by side to create consistency in the design, instead of the variegation that occurs from an abundance of different plants individually.

If you can’t do it or you just don’t want to remake the entire area into a “garden for the lazy,” then limit yourself to one unpretentious garden area and see how you like it.

Smart technologies for a beautiful and practical garden

Good soil - healthy plants

When planting and replanting plants, dig more deep hole, to the bottom of which be sure to add

Sow and plant new plants in spring or fall, when there is enough moisture in the garden and plants take root easily without additional watering.

Combine plants according to their needs. By planting plants that need periodic watering next to each other rather than in different corners of the garden, you will save time and effort in the future.

Basic principles of a low-maintenance garden

As experience shows, organize the territory suburban area and starting a garden is not that 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 the “garden with minimal care“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 the 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 with anything, but delight their owners with lush flowering from mid-summer, maintaining their decorative effect until the very 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 and Pink colour up 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 flowering 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 quantities 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

A favorite garden should be shady, cozy and fragrant, and not at all demanding to care for. To do this, you need to know the basic principles of “gardening for lazy people” or “ lazy garden«.

Gardens that do not require special care have been invented a long time ago. Most often this is the so-called natural garden- What has grown has grown. Or " grandma's» - artistically overgrown, with no visible layout.

They have one thing in common: such a garden requires increased attention at the creation stage, but after two or three years it pleases with its beauty and does not require special care. Of course, you still have to do a little work:

• at least sometimes weed,
• water the garden as needed,
• in spring - remove last year's vegetation.

But it's not that difficult. And to avoid big problems, you just need to stay in tune with reality and not take the extraordinary garden with beautiful picture. Most often, such glossy photographs show the luxurious gardens of Greece, Spain, Turkey, where the climate is completely different, much more garden-loving and... lazy - after all, the local residents cannot imagine life without a siesta!

Hassle-free garden

So, let's start planning a garden for the lazy...

Trees

There should be a lot of trees and shrubs in our garden. They provide life-saving shade, shelter from prying eyes, bloom beautifully, and, most importantly, they are perennial, which means they require almost no trouble.

It is important not to buy capricious, moisture-loving shrubs or trees that require continuous pruning and feeding. The choice of the lazy(in the most beautiful sense of the word) -

• barberry,
• honeysuckle,
• lilac,
• Rowan.

Barberry bush in lazy garden

Lilac blooms

If you dream of a hedge, but don’t want to bother with pruning shears, choose plants that don’t require regular trimming:

• rhododendron,
• mock orange,
• hydrangeas,
• spirea

Blooming hydrangea bush

Spiraea for the lazy garden