Tips to Reduce Maintenance Time in the Garden

How long do you spend working in your garden? No matter how much you love being outdoors and gardening, sometimes, it can be hard to find as much time as you might like to work on your outside space.

Whether you have a busy schedule and a hectic lifestyle or just want to cut down on some of the more monotonous garden maintenance tasks, here are some top tips to help you reduce your garden maintenance time and begin gardening in a smarter way.

Artificial Grass

The artificial grass of today is lush, green, and natural in appearance. While many people still prefer a traditional lawn, the reality is that artificial grass offers much more freedom in terms of maintenance. By laying artificial grass, you are reducing the need for regular maintenance tasks like mowing, strimming, and weeding – in fact, the only upkeep that your synthetic lawn should need is a semi-regular brush to keep the pile standing upright.

Soil Quality

While this may initially seem as though you’re adding tasks to your to-do list rather than removing them, ensuring the soil in your garden is good quality is a great way to save on upkeep time in the future. If the soil in your garden is naturally good quality, you are lucky! However, if your existing soil isn’t quite so high quality, you have several options. Firstly, you can choose plants that prefer impoverished soil (wildflowers are perfect for low-quality soil) or actively put time into improving the quality of your garden’s soil. Another option is to focus on raised beds where you can grow your plants in good quality soil.

Watering Plants

Depending on the type of plants in your garden, the season and the weather, it may not be necessary to water your plants as regularly as you might think. Of course, there are many different factors that will play a part in this, but there are also some tips that can help you water your garden in a smarter way. As a general rule, it’s recommended to water your plants outside of the heat of the day as this will reduce evaporation. Similarly, it’s best to water soil rather than the plant itself (particularly in the case of delicate flowers) to reduce damage and ensure the water gets to the roots of the plant.

Plant Options

The type, variety and number of plants that you have in your garden will also play a role in upkeep time. As a general rule, more flowers and plants will mean more maintenance time will be needed to ensure they look their best, but similarly, it’s also worth bearing in mind that trees and shrubs will most likely need to be pruned. Before investing in a new plant for your garden, it’s best to do your research and check that it is compatible with your garden space, soil quality, and maintenance requirements.

Further Maintenance

Of course, it’s not just the natural parts of your garden that need maintenance. Garden furniture, fences, walls, outdoor lights, decorations and more will all need upkeep and maintenance from time to time, so it’s important to factor them into the time you have available. If you have small ornaments or decorations in your garden, it’s best to bring them indoors or into a shed or garage during the winter, where possible, to avoid damage from the elements. The same applies to popular garden features like fairy lights, barbecues, outdoor toys for children and/or pets, and any soft furnishings on outdoor furniture.

It is worth bearing in mind that while maintaining your garden may not be the most exciting task, some degree of maintenance and upkeep will always be necessary in order to ensure your outdoor area continues looking its best throughout the year.

However, hopefully, these tips should help you spend less time maintaining your garden and more time enjoying it!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.