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The height of convenience! Garden ideas for the lazy. You don’t have to take care - it grows on its own, and how magnificently! Garden for the lazy: Creating a beautiful, low-maintenance garden Plants for a lazy garden detailed selection

The height of convenience! Garden ideas for the lazy. You don’t have to take care - it grows on its own, and how magnificently! Garden for the lazy: Creating a beautiful, low-maintenance garden Plants for a lazy garden detailed selection

A beautiful colorful garden from spring to late autumn is not a dream. But not everyone wants to spend all their time on the site, planting flower beds and caring for the lawn. How can you minimize the effort to enjoy the colors of the garden while lying on a chaise longue with a book or rocking on a garden rocking sofa? Firstly, plan the landscape correctly and, secondly, select plants that require a minimum of care.

Think about which garden is easier for you to keep tidy - regular French, requiring frequent trimming garden forms, flower beds that exclude even a hint of weeds, or slightly neglected English with its free layout? Logic dictates that English version more convenient.

The fewer flower beds in the garden, the easier it is to care for. Choose colorful shrubs that change their appearance throughout the seasons. But it’s still difficult to imagine a luxurious garden without flowers. And they need beautiful background- lay out large areas for a lawn or a picturesque lawn with clover, daisies, and tenacious. Weeds are not so noticeable on it - just mow them. By the way, daisies easily tolerate pruning and bloom wonderfully, very low above the rosettes of leaves.

Choose plants that are resistant to our climate and can tolerate frost. Combine plants with different foliage in height, shape and color, so that even in bloom the garden remained decorative. Arrange mixborders at the intersection of paths to complicate the image of the garden.

If there is a difference in the landscape on the site, do not be afraid to create terraces and retaining walls - they will enrich the picture of the garden and make it more picturesque.

A paved patio will also do a great job of creating a backdrop for flowers, and at the same time it will less problems with mowing the lawn - a tiring task, even if you use a self-propelled gasoline lawn mower.

By the way, high-quality equipment will greatly simplify garden care. In addition to a lawnmower suitable for open, flat areas, stock up on a gas trimmer to trim grass and weeds around bushes and trees.

Lawn advice
As soon as the grass grows above ten centimeters, weekly trimming (or at least once every two weeks) will accompany your time in the garden. Remember that proper mowing of the lawn involves mowing with a “snake”, so that the grass crushed by the wheels falls under the blade of the mower moving in the opposite direction.

The shape of the lawn and the organization of the surrounding plantings are very important. The more separately growing plantings in the middle of the lawn, the more time you will spend. The border between the lawn and continuous plantings is another important solution for simplifying maintenance.

Optimizing lawn mowing is not a reason to completely abandon tapeworm in the middle of it. If we are talking about a tree, form its crown at such a height that you can walk under it freely. Plant plants that must be spaced apart from each other no closer than the width of the lawn mower wheels, otherwise you will have to trim the grass with a trimmer, which is quite tedious.

To avoid soil contamination between off-lawn plantings, cover the soil with decorative mulch (such as bark). Between young plantings, it is worth covering the ground with non-woven material and sprinkling with gravel - this will eliminate weeding and the ubiquitous grass. Or if fresh plantings shrubs and perennials require filling the space between young plants; bright annuals can be used.

What to plant in the garden
Refuse to plant annuals through seedlings - choose those that easily develop without care, do not require preliminary germination, bloom for a long time and brightly, and also self-sow the next year: Eschscholzia, self-seeded poppy (Papaver rhoеas), annual flax ( Linum grandiflorum), cornflower (Centaurea), toadflax (Linaria vulgaris), calendula (Calendula officinalis).

Bulbous flowers: buried and forgotten
Tulips and hyacinths are magical spring flowers that delight the eye at the beginning of the season. But imagine what will happen in their place in the summer, as soon as the flowers fade? Drying leaves, which you still cannot cut off, so as not to deprive the bulb of the accumulated useful substances. But after the leaves have completely dried, you need to have time to dig up the bulbs to dry. And at the end of summer or beginning of autumn you will have to replant them.

Therefore, everything that needs to be dug up annually for drying or for wintering indoors and then replanted (tulips, hyacinths, anemones, gladioli, crocosmias, as well as tuberous dahlias) is, alas, better not to plant.

It’s better to choose bulbs that will grow well if you don’t dig them up at all. Beautiful, although not so large flowers: Puschkinia, Scilla, Muscari, Brodiaea, Leucojum, blooms in spring and summer, crocuses (Crocus) - spring blooming and autumn blooming, Camassia - spectacular blue flowers, blooming in early summer, decorative onions decorating the garden with balls of flowers on tall stems in midsummer. Be sure to plant a lot of lilies - Asiatic and LA hybrids. But refrain from the eastern ones, they winter much worse in central Russia. Caring for these flowers is minimal - fertilizing with fertilizer for bulbous flowers.

If you really want tulips, plant wild species: they look quite unusual. Daffodils can bloom well in one place without digging for about 4-5 years. The only problem is the yellowing leaves, which cannot be cut off until they dry completely. Therefore, choose a place for them next to perennials, which will cover them with their leaves in the summer.

However, if you can’t imagine your garden without large beautiful tulips in spring, place their bulbs in plastic mesh in the ground - this will make it easier and faster to dig them up to dry. Allow yourself to forget about this process for a year - one summer spent in the ground without drying will not cause such terrible damage to the flowering of tulips next year. The ideal “shelter” for faded bulbous plants will be hostas, peonies, and daylilies.

You should not be afraid of weeds and constantly fight with them. A garden close to country style is suited to slight neglect. The latest trends at the Chelsea Garden Show are further proof that weeds can brighten up the garden.

Leave the natural shapes characteristic of your soil. They will give the garden a more natural look. For example, an ordinary garden chamomile creates beautiful compositions and connects plantings without any participation from the gardener. In addition, it blooms for a long time and is very resistant to heat and drought. Even burdock with its huge leaves can look impressive, and thistles can decorate a composition with lupins and rudbeckias with their flowers.

Perennials - only the most unpretentious
Peonies require regular fertilization, watering before flowering and cutting off the foliage before winter, but this care will pay off a hundredfold when the garden is filled with huge fragrant flowers. Daylilies will grow magnificently on sunny place and, like peonies, even after they bloom, they will look decorative and neat.

Decorative foliage and beautiful arrows with white or lilac hosta bell flowers are ideal for semi-shaded and shady places(including under trees, but not near the trunks). True, the hostas will need to be trimmed after the first frost, which will “beat” their leaves, and in October they will need to be mulched with soil for the winter.

Irises - Siberian (Irissibírica) and marsh (Iris pseudacoru), easy to care for - will decorate moist, sunny places in the garden. Before the onset of winter, they will also need to be cut at a height of 10 cm above the ground. Bearded irises will require more care: weeding, digging up rhizomes ( bearded irises stop blooming profusely and begin to get sick when their rhizomes are buried), shelters for the winter. But still, bearded irises are one of the best jewelry garden in June. To make it easier to care for them, choose old, proven varieties that grow quickly and are disease-resistant.

Chamomiles, lupins, rudbeckias are all very resistant plants that look beautiful both in flower beds (elongated flower beds) and separately in a mixborder. They can be grown in the garden directly from seeds.

Biennials - Turkish cloves(Dianthus barbatus), hollyhock (Alcea rosea) - also suitable for gardens and mixborders and are very easy to grow. The only thing that needs to be taken into account is that they bloom only in the second year after planting, and then they need to be removed and replanted, otherwise lush flowering it won't be anymore.

Flowering shrubs
To almost completely free yourself from the hassle of caring for your garden, create a multi-layered composition of beautifully flowering shrubs . Place shrubs of different types, heights and shapes along the perimeter of your garden, near the fence, next to buildings. The more picturesque, the better - even if one of them freezes over the winter, the neighbors will hide its unkempt appearance.

Common lilac is a must-have in a garden that requires little care. In May, the aroma of its flowers will fill the entire garden, and the beauty is lush flowering bushes everyone knows. Choose varieties with large double flowers - “Nadezhda”, “Beauty of Moscow” and other varieties by L.A. Kolesnikov, which are amazing in the size of their flowers and winter well in the Moscow region. The only concern is to trim off the faded racemes after flowering.

In a sunny place, the bladderwort can quickly grow into a huge, spreading, three-meter bush. To create a contrasting composition with other shrubs and flowers, choose one of the brightest expressive varieties - Physocarpus Diablo with dark foliage. In June it will be covered with white flowers, collected in slightly pinkish scutes. In June, the mock orange will decorate the garden with its white flowers with the scent of jasmine ( garden jasmine).

White dogwood (Cornus alba) in its popular variegated form blooms beautifully in spring, turns impressive pink in autumn, and its red branches are spectacular even in a leafless winter garden. Plant turf on wet soils, where it quickly develops, and always in the rear part of the composition, otherwise soon the neighbors will not be visible behind it - the derain, like the silver elk, behaves quite aggressively, taking up much more space than was allotted according to the plan.

Don’t forget about rose hips - after the fragrant flowers, they have bright fruits left to decorate the garden.

Decide for yourself, after assessing the amount of necessary autumn work, whether you are ready to see forsythia in your garden. This still leafless bush is strewn with yellow flowers. early spring makes a great impression. By autumn, its graceful foliage turns different colors. But for good flowering forsythia needs to be hidden in a shelter during the winter near Moscow: in the fall you will have to pay special attention to forsythia, bending its branches to the ground and wrapping it with lutrasil.

For the foreground in a composition of shrubs and perennials, spireas in all their diversity are suitable - gray spirea (Spirae a cinerea), Japanese spirea (Spiraeajaponica), Vanguta spirea (Spiraeavanhouttei) and others. All of them are very decorative: they bloom beautifully, and in different times and without any maintenance. The branches of the low gray spirea are completely covered with small white flowers in the spring. In the summer and even again in the fall (when pruned after flowering), Japanese spirea has flower shields of pink flowers.

Tree hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) and paniculata (Hydrangea paniculata) are decorations for semi-shaded places in the garden. It looks great in compositions with coniferous plants.

Barberries (often common barberry Berberis vulgaris and Thunberg barberry Berberisthunbergi) are blooming yellow flowers not very impressive, but their characteristic leaves and branches with small red berries look very decorative. Moreover, last year’s berries remain on the bush. The same can be said about the European euonymus, extremely decorative in the fall thanks to its flaming foliage and its special fruits in the form of open bright pink boxes with orange berries inside.

Willow whole-leaved "Hakuro Nishiki" (SalixintegraHakuro Nishiki) is another ornamental shrub that does not require care, which has not flowers, but foliage worthy of becoming a garden decoration. The white leaves on the young shoots of this willow turn pale pink in the sun.

Trees in bloom and more
Usually you have to wait too long for trees planted young to show themselves in all their glory, and not every gardener can handle planting large trees. So if you already have large trees in your garden, let them be the basis for creating compositions of shrubs and perennials, because without them it is difficult to achieve a feeling of natural luxury and scope in the most beautiful garden.

From what is worth adding to the garden, not counting the beautifully flowering apple trees, cherries, and plums, is the common bird cherry in its red-leaved form. horse chestnut with candles of flowers and decorative foliage, it is even good in the form of a young tree. Manchurian walnut (Juglans mandshurica), due to its large openwork leaves, growth rate, and excellent winter hardiness, is another candidate for your garden. The red-leaved forms of oak and maple will support the foliage color of purple barberry bushes and the red-brown foliage of Diabolo.

Evergreen garden
Be sure to add to the garden coniferous shrubs and trees. Junipers of different shapes perfectly connect different plants with each other in a mixo-browder - from just junipers and thujas you can already create decorative garden, playing with the color of the needles (yellow-colored forms of Aurea, white-tipped Albospikata) and the shape of plants. All these plants can be easily found in nurseries: more inexpensive - in the form of very small seedlings and more expensive - at the age of three to five years. What to choose depends only on your budget.

Certainly, proper landing all these plants and the right set of fertilizers in landing pits the required width and depth - will require a lot of effort, but only once. And with the most minimal care, such a garden will sparkle with all its richness of colors in a few years. You just need to give him a little freedom.

Who among us would not like to have a beautiful blooming garden without devoting much time to it? But is this possible? Let's try to answer this question by considering the most labor-intensive elements of the garden.

Let's start with the lawn. This is a very caring part of the garden. Firstly, weeds should not grow on a real lawn, and secondly, it must be mowed weekly and watered after mowing, at least in the spring. And on light soils and several times in the summer it needs to be fertilized. Is there a way to minimize lawn care? Yes. Arrange a meadow or lawn of clover. A meadow is a symbiosis of herbs that grow in a given area. If you start mowing it every 10-14 days, it will take on the trimmed green look so dear to our hearts. The meadow does not require watering and fertilizing, by the way, and in the spring it comes to life much faster than our pampered lawn treasure. Instead of a real lawn, you can plant a clover lawn; it is also good and at the same time undemanding and unpretentious. It will not be possible to grow a lawn in very dry or very wet or shady places; here it is better to use ground cover plants, just remember that you cannot walk on them.

If you have a large lawn, you can not mow all of it, but only in those places where you walk. This will not only reduce mowing time, but will make the garden more romantic. This technique has been used in England for a long time, but here it is just beginning to come into use. In those places that will not be mowed weekly, you can plant bulbous and small-bulbous plants - in the spring they will flourish, then their foliage will turn yellow among the grass, and only then this place can be mowed, for example, once a month.

Another alternative to lawn is gravel. I love this wonderful material in the garden, but it must be laid according to all the rules, be sure to place geotextiles or lutrasil under the gravel.

Paths in a minimum maintenance garden must be paved; their area must be sufficient, but not excessive.

What plants should be used in a low-maintenance garden? First of all, these should be trees and shrubs. Even for our difficult climate, there are quite a few very beautiful ornamental shrubs and trees that are consistently decorative and require virtually no maintenance throughout the season. These are, for example, species and varietal spruce trees, pines, thujas, willows, maples, barberries, spirea, bladderworts, dogwoods, honeysuckle, elderberries, as well as fruit trees and shrubs.

What perennials can be used in a low-maintenance garden? These are those plants that are decorative throughout the season and do not require frequent divisions and replantings. Hostas, bergenia, peonies, daylilies, astilbes, lungworts, ferns and many others are suitable for a low-maintenance garden; their range is quite wide. These wonderful compositions require virtually no maintenance.

Plants with the same requirements for light, humidity, acidity and soil fertility should be selected in one composition. This seemingly obvious rule is often violated, the plants suffer, they have to be treated and replaced. For a low-maintenance garden, it is advisable to use species plants or old proven varieties; capricious new products should be avoided.

To reduce the time spent caring for the garden, it is important to rationally plan plantings so that the plants grow not one at a time on the lawn, but in compact groups. They not only look more interesting, but are more technologically advanced to care for. Be sure to mulch the plantings, this gives them more interesting view, reduces the time for weeding, creates more comfortable conditions life.

It is very important to think about how to fix the border between the lawn and the mixborder, for example, using tiles or border stones, this will eliminate the operation of trimming the edge. In the photo, the border between the mixborder and the lawn is secured by two rows of paving stones. Reducing the time spent caring for a garden is within the capabilities of a thinking gardener if he sets such a goal.

Is it possible to have beautiful garden a working person or a not very young and healthy person? Absolutely yes. You just need to plan it wisely and plant wonderful and problem-free plants in the right places that will not require too tedious care. If you do everything correctly, then caring for the garden will bring only positive emotions, not to mention the joy of seeing beautiful and healthy bushes and perennials.

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 choose drought-resistant ones that do not require regular watering plants. 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 nice if they self-seeded and subsequently sown themselves :). You can recommend, for example, and.

Bulbous unpretentious flowers:

Even with limited time, you can keep your garden beautiful so that on rare visits you can enjoy the next bloom of various flowers. Undoubtedly, minimal care also needed by unpretentious plants. 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 of weed control - chemicals. At least once a season, feed the plants with complex fertilizer.

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.

Woody instead of herbaceous

Trees and shrubs can rightfully be called the “skeleton” of any garden. They not only shape the appearance of the site, but also allow you to spend the least amount of time on maintenance. Dominant gardens woody plants, mainly coniferous species, they look good even when they stop caring for them altogether.

Mature trees and shrubs require very little time and labor: just pruning 1-2 times a year and occasional watering. It is thanks to their always good appearance and ease of care that they are so popular in European front gardens.

The range of tree crops is very extensive: you can find plants of any size and shape, with decorative foliage or beautifully flowering, deciduous or evergreen. True, the latter usually require more attention. Among them are seemingly unpretentious conifers: there are many “capricious” species and varieties that need shelter from spring sun at least in the first years after planting (many thujas, junipers, hemlocks). The most reliable of the conifers are usually the forms of Scots spruce or mountain pine.

It would seem that what could be more unpretentious than Scots pine? However, from experience, those selected in more warm countries varieties of this species in climate middle zone Russia often doesn't feel its best.

Among the shrubs there are also relatively low-growing ones that can be used as some kind of alternative to the lawn - these are spirea, stephanandra, horizontal juniper, microbiota. Over time, when they grow (or if the planting was initially dense), almost no weeds appear under them. And, of course, the traditional way to reduce weeding and watering of any plantings is to mulch the soil with loose organic materials (chopped branches, bark, fallen leaves, mown grass, etc.). But we must remember that the use of coniferous bark acidifies the soil, which not all plants like.

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko

Trouble-free way!

We often hear that the garden coniferous plants requires almost no maintenance. This is partly true. But I would make a small addition. Coniferous forest - yes, it does not require maintenance. Fir trees and pine trees are growing, becoming from year to year more and more like some of the Kremlin New Year's trees, and others of mast linemen. But speaking of coniferous garden, we still mean something else: a variety of varietal larches, spruces, junipers, pseudo-hemlocks and simply hemlocks... And for a low-maintenance garden, preference should be given to the slowest-growing varieties. So that we have no other concern other than admiring! Those that grow quickly require more attention to themselves: mandatory and timely annual pruning, sometimes radical. And this, believe me, goes against the idea of low-income. And, of course, you should not plant conifers that are problematic for your region. For example, the popular Canadian spruce ‘Konika’, which suffers greatly from the spring sun, is simply contraindicated for the gardens of our Karelian Isthmus. Not only does it take a lot of time to annually cut out the “burnt” branches, but we usually plant it in the most visible place. And at the sight of a “beauty” with brown and blackened needles, the gardener’s mood becomes very bleak. A. Ganov

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko

Meadow instead of lawn

The lawn is a wonderful backdrop for planting, but it is extremely labor-intensive. Judge for yourself: in the spring you need to comb it out, remove old dry grass, make punctures so that the roots of the grass breathe better, mow it every week or two in the summer, water it so that there are no areas with excess or insufficient hydration(otherwise unsightly stains may appear on it), fertilize regularly... Unfortunately, a garden carpet requires constant effort.

The search for alternatives has been going on for quite some time. A good option is to replace the lawn with a “natural meadow”. Such a meadow only needs to be mowed once or twice a season, and not weekly, like a lawn. True, after mowing it loses its decorative effect for one or two weeks until the grass grows back. But you can forgive the meadow what you don’t want to forgive the lawn: even if in some place the grass grows worse, spots appear, the color is not cheerfully green enough or the grass falls due to rain and wind - this will not spoil the almost natural community.

The meadow must be laid out specifically. An overgrown lawn cannot become one, if only because the density of planting grasses on the lawn is much higher than grasses and perennials in the meadow. The main problem that you may encounter if you want to create a real meadow is rhizomatous weeds: wheatgrass, sow thistle, and sowweed. They pose no danger on the lawn because they do not tolerate constant mowing. In the meadow, they feel very at ease and can kill cultivated plants. The only way to avoid this is to thoroughly clear the area designated for the meadow of weed roots in advance.

There are special grass mixtures designed to create a meadow. As a rule, they consist of seeds of both annual and perennial plants: While perennial grasses will develop, annuals will provide decorative value in the first season. Such mixtures can also be thematic - for example, intended for more humid or dry places, with a predominance of flowers of certain shades, or with the participation of plants attractive to bees and butterflies. Unfortunately, the range of such seeds offered by our garden centers is not yet very large.

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko

Don't create difficulties for yourself!

There is a widespread misconception among people that, they say, “I’ll plant everything with a lawn and won’t do anything else.” I'm not even talking about the fact that only a good, even, like pool table, emerald-colored lawn. And this requires very serious effort and skills. But let's say you did it anyway. And lovingly you call him nothing more than “my English.” Let's come down to earth: in May you will be fed and mastered a new mechanism under the frightening name “verticutter”. Every Saturday in the summer there is a haircut. And so on. Attention, lovers of the “easy life” in the garden: the lawn is not for you! A. Ganov

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko

Flower garden: natural instead of traditional

In principle, a flower garden or mixborder we are accustomed to cannot be low-maintenance. To make it look beautiful, you need to constantly trim faded flowers, tie up plants, monitor their neatness and appearance. Not to mention the weeding!

New Horizons

The appearance of flower beds, which really require almost no maintenance, is associated with the advent of the “new wave” - popular in recent years style landscape design. Most famous representative this direction - Dutch breeder and designer Piet Oudolf- turned an imitation of wild prairies into a trendy garden solution. Such flower beds, of course, may not appeal to lovers of bright roses and peonies, but their beauty is difficult not to appreciate.

The basic principle of the “new wave” flower beds is planting identical plants in large arrays (sometimes with individual accent inclusions of other species). It is not the beauty of each individual flower that is valued, but the overall appearance of the plant - its shape and ability to look good both in summer and winter come to the fore, because perennials in such flower beds are either not pruned at all or pruned at the beginning of the next season. This is their main difference from traditional English mixborders, which have become the basis of flower beds in our gardens.

Adapt to natural conditions

There is no need to act against nature! The result will not be long in coming. For example, if fate has given you a semi-shaded area with a large number of trees, abundant undergrowth and the obligatory coolness of the forest, then there is probably no need to try to arrange a Versailles with a hundred or two roses or a classic English mixborder under the shade of hundred-year-old birch or pine trees. Disappointment from what you have done will come very quickly. And you will increasingly remember the parable of Sisyphus... But don’t be discouraged! You have at your disposal a huge number of shade-loving plants, from which, of course, Versailles will not come out, but you can get a beautiful, unique and, importantly, low-maintenance garden in all respects, where the kings of such places - rhododendrons - will feel good. Semi-shaded places are the kingdom of hostas, lungworts, buzulniks, ferns, ornamental conifers and many other, dare I say it, gorgeous plants. A. Ganov

The “new wave” flower garden does not have to look neat. The plants fell apart - and okay! After all, you can also fall apart in style, as, for example, burnets or veronicastrum do (unlike tall tulips, delphiniums and gladioli, which cannot do without a garter). And how can such grains as pike, molinia or reed grass look neat? Of course not! But it is precisely the mass of inflorescences that they grow that gives the flower garden airiness, volume, and softness of transitions between brightly flowering perennials.

Photo: AiF/ Marina Banulina

Choose carefully

Do you still insist on a traditional mixborder? Pay attention to such a parameter of decorative perennials as their growth rate. If the curtain grows by more than 5–10 cm per year (such as monarda, physostegia, yarrow, meadowsweet, many autumn-flowering asters, falaris, manna), “keeping the plant in check” will require effort. Plants that need to be divided frequently to maintain their health and decorative appearance (nivberry, delphinium, bearded irises, lilies) or, conversely, those that tend to reproduce by self-seeding (sapling, rudbeckia) also cannot be called easy to care for. By planting them, you are planting future problems with your own hands! A flower garden made up of more compact perennials that rarely require division (hostas, daylilies, peonies, phlox, Siberian and Japanese irises, hellebores, cereals growing in a dense bush) will require much less effort to maintain beauty. Surprisingly, even a ceremonial rose garden often needs less care than a flower garden of the most common unpretentious perennials. Elena Kozhina, experienced gardener

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko Should you prune your plants in the fall? Why? Miscanthus, reed grass, monarda, echinacea, veronicastrum, mullein will last well all winter, creating the volume that is so lacking winter garden. After all, an ordinary mixborder with stems cut in the fall looks like a boring plane until spring. Is it a “new wave” flower garden? It is especially beautiful after the first snowfall, when the snow has only dusted but not yet broken the dried grass stems.

Cleaning and pruning is carried out in the spring, when the snow has melted, but perennials and grasses have not yet begun to grow. In the climate of central Russia, this begins in mid-April. When cutting, you usually have to use a sickle or pruning shears, since the stems of many tall perennials are too stiff and simply raking them will not work. Most varietal plants do not self-sow (they are specially selected for this characteristic), so everything cut can be safely placed in garden shredder and get excellent mulching material. Mulch helps reduce water evaporation, reduce the number of germinating weed seeds and, rotting, over time turns into excellent loose soil. Unlike conifer bark, crushed perennial stems do not acidify the soil.

What to give up?

If the idea of low-maintenance gardening is at the forefront, then you will have to “give up” some plants. First of all, these are young perennials (there is such a slightly absurd-sounding concept!). Such plants include many varietal echinaceas (sadly), some primroses, columbine plants, snakeheads... The fact that these plants are short-lived does not mean that they will become “Persona non Grata” in your garden. You just need to remember that they will require a little more attention than “true perennials”, sometimes capable of living in one place for a hundred years: herbaceous peonies, hostas, many ferns, etc. A. Ganov Can such a flower garden be called completely maintenance-free? Certainly not. But it requires much less attention than the usual flower border. Except spring pruning, it will have to be watered in the driest months, occasionally fertilized and weeded once or twice a season, since, despite the mulch, weed seeds will still germinate.

Practical solutions

No to weeds!

No matter how hard we try to create garden compositions “once and for all” and not care for them later, there are plants that can ruin all our good endeavors. It's about about rhizomatous weeds (wheatgrass, sow thistle, bindweed and others). Before you plant anything, it is vital to clear the area completely of them. Otherwise, the “invaders” will sooner or later re-conquer the entire territory.

Of course, fighting perennial weeds is an activity that is difficult to classify as “minor garden care.” But this preparatory process is necessary.

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko

Glyphosate-based herbicides kill all plants, so crops must be protected from it. In case of accidental contact, it is better not to wash off the solution, but to cut off the affected leaves and shoots.

The ideal, but, alas, practically unavailable option for getting rid of weeds in our country is to completely remove the plant soil and fill the entire area with compost from food waste, as is done when creating “new wave” flower beds in Europe. If it is impossible to replace the soil, to clean the area intended for planting ornamental plants, as a rule, it is necessary to use herbicides. Twice, with a 10-day break, treating the area with a glyphosate-based product (Roundup, Tornado, Hurricane Forte, Agrokiller and others) almost completely destroys the wart. The treatment is carried out in the spring, when the leaves of the tree have just begun to open; the remaining plants will have to be removed manually in the future.

Photo: AiF/ Victor Tropchenko

In addition, regular mowing of weeds at the root for one or two seasons (after digging and removing most of the rhizomes) helps. Covering the soil with cardboard and then adding a layer of soil on top is also quite effective: the borer cannot penetrate the cardboard and dies, and over time the paper decomposes and ceases to be an obstacle to the roots cultivated plants. After treatment with herbicides, you can sow the soil with green manure and then dig it up. But, alas, not a single method works one hundred percent.

Weeding - on time!

A paradoxical but true statement: in order for a garden to be easy to care for, it needs to be looked after correctly and in a timely manner. For example, one of the most hated procedures in the garden - weeding - can be minimized if done on time. The easiest time to fight weeds is in late spring and early summer, when they have already grown sufficiently, but in no case have had time to bloom and inseminate. Besides, ornamental plants should be planted densely enough so that their leaves meet and shade the ground. This also makes life very difficult for weeds. And timely mowing of not only your own lawn, but also the surrounding inconveniences will not allow weeds to inseminate. So it turns out: in order to work less in the garden, you need to work hard! A. Ganov

However, if it is planned to plant trees, shrubs and powerful tall perennials (for example, miscanthus, knotweed or saplings), then wheatgrass and wheatgrass are unlikely to harm them. Well, in shaded places, the disease can be dealt with by dense planting of pachysandra, kupena, hosta and other plants that form dense clumps.

Personal experience. Harvest without hassle

Marina Novikova, Moscow:

— I am a classic “weekend gardener.” Grandchildren and grandmother constantly live at the dacha in the summer, but looking after children and housework takes up all her time - there is absolutely no time to care for plants. But you still want your own greens, fruits and berries! So you have to get out of it in order to get the maximum return with a minimum of effort.

1. And most importantly. Don't plant too much! Calculate how much harvest you really need. The simplest example: if you really only need two dozen young carrots for summer soups and for children to nibble on, then you don’t need a whole bed of carrots, one row 1-2 m long will be enough for you. Moreover, if you still have nowhere to store root vegetables. The same applies to berry growers and orchard. It’s easier to plant a couple of trees and bushes good varieties and how to care for them (it won’t take much time!), rather than either admire the army of neglected, weakly fruiting “suffocated” ones, or spend a lot of energy on caring for them, and then “choke” on the harvest.

Photo: AiF/Elena Kozhina 2. The better the plan is drawn up, the less work itself is needed later. Rational organized vegetable garden(compact, with convenient passages and easy access to water), thoughtful crop rotation, and timely agrotechnical operations will make dacha work as efficient as possible.

3. “Plowing” the garden beds is not valor! Anything that can make aftercare easier is greatly appreciated. For example, permanent fenced beds with paths paved, mulched, or covered with old mats or black non-woven material. Straw under strawberries. Potato and cabbage beds covered with thin white “non-fabric” allow you to forget about pests. Low crowns fruit trees, making them easier to care for. Mulch under the bushes. Are there a lot of useful techniques?

4. What about technology? After all, it’s the 21st century, whatever one may say! There is a huge amount useful devices, allowing you to automate labor-intensive operations, and many of them are quite affordable. For example, systems drip irrigation or automatically opening windows for a greenhouse. You will be surprised how much time and effort this will save in the end!

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