Plants for Low, Medium and High Maintenance

THE single most important thing you can do to create a low-maintenance garden is to choose the right plants, and here are some general guidelines.

Easy-Care Plants

Ornamental Grasses require no more care than cutting back to 6" in early March.  A month later they're back and will contribute to your garden all season long and even through winter. Just give them enough space; a half-day of sun is plenty.

Trees and Shrubs are the best plants for creating full, gorgeous and low-maintenance gardens. At most, some require yearly pruning; others, not even that.  More tips:

It Depends on How They're Grown

Lawn is usually cited as high-maintenance, but I beg to differ.  As I pointed out on my Lawn Care Page, it's easy to grow a lawn if you do it organically and let it be taller and maybe even a little weedy.  Grown this way, lawn is certainly less work than borders of annuals and perennials and it does a good job of retaining rainwater and preventing erosion.  (I've read and heard that lawn accuseddoesn't hold rainwater well but it does a great job on my own sloping property.  However, when planted on very poor soils - often post-construction - lawn can indeed fail to hold water like it should.)

Perennials, unlike annuals, will last for at least a few years but contrary to their reputation for low maintenance, they're constantly in a state of flux and need adjustment every season. (Removing the failures, containing the spreaders, dividing the too-large.)  The good news is that most gardeners enjoy this.  It's creative, and not especially back-breaking, so I encourage readers to grow perennials, especially the easier ones. 

Ground covers are less work than turfgrass around trees or along fences where it's hard to mow.  Plants that spread (most groundcovers) should we planted alone or with large plants, not with annuals or perennials that can be smothered by aggressive groundcovers.  It's easiest to find one or two groundcovers that works well in your garden and use them extensively.

Bulbs - there are bulbs for every site, sun or shade, and the lowest-maintenance bulbs are those that naturalize, which means they spread on their own and come back for years.  So select daffodils that feature words like "perennialize" or "naturalize".  Other good repeaters and spreaders are species crocus, chinodoxa, hyacinthoides, and certain daffodils.  Darwin tulips are long-lasting when given good drainage.  To make sure your bulbs have some impact in the garden, buy them in quantity and just tell the kids that planting bulbs is FUN.

 

More Tips on Growing Perennials

  • To avoid having to remove dead flowers, choose "self-cleaning" perennials whose flowers drop off, or just get used to the spent look.
  • To avoid staking - a tedious task that produces an ugly result - choose shorter varieties, especially at the front of your borders, or plants that look good flopping over.  If you have notorious floppers like aster and mums, hack them back to half their size twice - in May and June - to produce shorter, more compact plants.
  • Dividing is actually a great way to fill up your garden with plants that perform well for you and cost nothing.  And filling your garden with these divisions is easier than caring for bare ground (a weed magnet) or trying new plants that may fail and need to be replaced.  Division also revitalizes overgrown and crowded plants.  And just think - your large hosta can be turned into 10-20 new plants worth $8 each. 

High-Maintenance Plants

Annuals not only have to be bought and planted every year but most need frequent watering and fertilizing.  This is especially true in pots, where they dry out quickly and can require daily watering and weekly feeding.

Seeds - starting anything from seed is labor-intensive.

Vegetables are generally a lot of work, though I'm told that using the principles of permaculture, they're not.  Try it and let me know if it works.

Fruit Trees typically require lots of pruning and spraying.  Certain varieties of pawpaw, persimmon, and cherry may perform better but do the research before buying.  Look for information about fruit or pod droppings that may require cleaning up after.

Vines are the most work of all, in my experience.  My three hardy kiwi vines require a time-consuming hacking back every month to keep them from eating my house, and ivy requires similar vigilance.  Just training vines to go where you want them to go is slow, detailed work.

Hybrid Tea Roses?  Avoid them like the plague.  Go to Easy Roses for names of low-maintenance roses.

This article was originally published in Maryland's Voice Newspapers.

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