Having a large garden can provide many benefits: lots of space for the children to run around, plenty of room for growing vegetables and other crops and a perfect space for entertaining guests in the summer. However, with all of this space, unfortunately comes a lot of work. This guide should help advise you on what you can do to reduce the amount of maintenance your large garden will require!
Choose Shrubs Instead of Perennials
Even though perennial plants are a popular choice in most gardens, they do require a lot of maintenance. However, if you replace these perennials with shrubs, especially the evergreen type, you will greatly reduce the amount of effort you need to put in. Whilst perennials need regularly deheading and pruning throughout the year, most shrubs will only require a thorough pruning once each year.
Don’t Rush To Fill Spaces
Many of us would hurry to buy a new plant in replacement of another that has recently died. However, in many cases, the plants and shrubs in the surrounding space will shortly grow large enough to fill this empty space. Not only will this save you effort put into maintaining another plant, it will save you money from buying a replacement.
Mulch Your Lawns
Mulch can help the incredibly pesky problem of weeds. Not only are these weeds unsightly, removing them is a very boring and unfortunately time consuming task. However, mulching your lawns and beds can make a huge difference to the problem.
Be Realistic With Plant Sizes
When you’re planning your garden it can be easy to get carried away by the idea of having large statement-making plants as part of the landscaping, but it’s important to be realistic. Will these plants require regular pruning, made even more difficult by their size? You should also consider your neighbours and whether these large pants would affect them; this would thus have an impact on the amount of pruning and maintenance you will have to carry out.
Rethink Having a Pond
Ponds can be a beautiful addition to any garden, big or small, but they really do require a lot of work! At the very least they require spring cleaning and clearing of leaves during the autumn, which, although not very time consuming, is unnecessary extra work. There are also the maintenance jobs that are unexpected with ponds, including problems with algae; fish and plant illnesses; and recirculation problems.
Avoid Planting Flowers Where Possible
Of course, nothing quite says ‘country garden’ like plenty of colourful flower beds. However, it is unfortunate that along with these flower beds inevitably comes a lot of maintenance. You don’t need to avoid them altogether, just use them sparingly. There are other ways to include colour and fragrance in your garden, such as with lavender plants, and shrubs and bushes.
Do you have any more tips on how to reduce maintenance in large gardens? Share your advice with us in the comments section!
[Photo Credit : ukgardenphotos ]
