Designing your garden for low maintenance

"Low Maintenance" has been a popular term in the gardening media for ages now, long enough to create plenty of confusion on the subject. In fact, I'm collecting examples of myths and mistakes about low maintenance gardening for a later column but for now, let's start with the question: What Is maintenance? The answer depends on the task and the person accomplishing it.

To many nongardeners, all gardening or yard work is considered maintenance and is to be avoided. And when it comes to such duties as applying chemicals, hassling with sprinklers, mowing and blowing, even gardeners want to avoid them. In fact, we think of them as "yardening," not gardening.

Real gardeners, however, want to spend time in their gardens tending their plants and dreaming up new design schemes and plant combos. So our view of maintenance is skewed because while we, too, want to avoid the drudgework duties (and duties they are), we actually enjoy tasks like pruning, deadheading old blossoms, hand-watering, weeding, and checking on our plants daily - anything to be in the garden. I offer as Exhibit A my dear old gardening mom who, after moving into a townhouse with almost no land to tend, would offer to drive 100 miles to weed my garden - she missed it that much. And I myself have been known to weed the gardens of bed and breakfasts where I'm a guest. So yes, it's an addiction and there's no 12-Step Program for it.

Photo: Susan Harris

But sometimes even diehard gardeners need low-maintenance gardens, due to physical limitations or too many demands on their time. And we all want to limit garden maintenance to tasks that are creative or relaxing, so these principles of low-maintenance (or more accurately, low-drudgery) garden design are for everyone.

Plants v. pavement

Clearly the least work of any landscape solution is to pave or deck over your entire property, but if you liked those ideas you wouldn't be reading this column, right? So let's assume you enjoy things that grow - plants! - and appreciate their contributions to air and water quality, not to mention your own quality of life. So which plants are the least work? The answer is clearly trees and shrubs, which also offer the most benefits to air and water quality. Smaller plants like perennials and annuals are definitely more work, while bulbs can be easy-care if you select the right ones. Even lawn can be low-maintenance if it's grown organically and if you abandon all hope of perfection, as explained in my column of April 2006. (More on high- and low-maintenance plant choices in an upcoming column.)

Keep it simple

Planting in sweeps and masses of just a few plants is a popular recommendation for reducing maintenance, the larger the mass the better - for large plants, 5 to10; for smaller ones, 10 to 30. This limited plant palette makes it easier to keep up with their care and prevent their intrusion on neighboring plants. Also, the fewer the species, the easier it is to limit yourself to those that are well suited to your site. And aesthetically, massing of plants usually results in a better looking garden, one that's restful to the eye, not chaotic.

Going lawnless

The delawning movement is in full swing, but if low maintenance is important to you, think very carefully before joining. For sunny spots the meadow look is often suggested but seen up-close around your home, meadows are unsightly most of the year and much more work than you think. Woodland gardens with paths meandering through them are more practical and better looking, too. They take advantage of the low-maintenance qualities of trees and shrubs, and have the added benefit of creating shade, which reduces weeds and the need to water. In our area I often suggest eliminating the small front lawn but keeping some lawn in the back for family fun. Fortunately there are plenty of attractive lawnless front yards around town; just take a stroll or a ride for ideas. And keep reading, because ideas for border design work for your all-border yards, too.

Gorgeous, easy borders

Photo: Susan Harris

Most of us choose to keep some lawn because it can be walked and played on, and it shows the plants arrayed around it to their best advantage. And for my money, the best-looking, easiest border is what's called the American Mixed Border, as popularized by Ann Lovejoy in her book by that name and others that followed. The basic design principle in mixed borders is copying nature, especially the way forests segue into meadows. Think about it. In the background are the tallest trees - the forest. In front of them are understory trees like dogwoods. In front of them are the shrubs, then shorter plants and finally, groundcover. And remember, the least-maintenance borders contain only small trees and shrubs.

More low-maintenance border techniques

• Use large curving lines that are easy to mow along. Edge the lawn with a paved mowing strip flush with lawn to eliminate the need to trim after mowing.
• Make borders and islands (freestanding plant areas) large, the larger the better.
• Limit those islands and avoid free-standing trees in the middle of your lawn. Trees look better and are generally happier when incorporated into borders. If you have a tree that can't be included in a border, at least remove the sod around it because mowing close to trees is difficult and can damages the tree. Instead, ring the tree with an easy, no-mow groundcover, like liriope or pachysandra.
• Limit high-maintenance plants to one area that's easily reachable by you and your water supply.
• Plant groundcover close together so it will fill in quickly and prevent weeds.
• Include stepping stones or pavers through wide borders, for easy access without causing soil compaction.

More design tips that reduce work

• High-traffic paths should be pavers or stepping stones, set flush with the ground, never lawn.
• Containers are popular in the gardening media but qualify as high-maintenance by any account, especially in the sun where they dry out quickly. We're talking daily watering. Plants in containers also require more frequent feeding.
• One or two high-impact plants in prominent sites can dramatize an otherwise simple garden using a very limited palette of plants.
• Avoid ponds, waterfalls and all water features but the simplest plug-in fountains. Consider yourself warned.

Master Gardener Susan Harris writes about gardening for UDC's Cooperative Extension Service and teaches gardening privately; see - thegardeningcoach.com. She also blogs at gardenrant.com and takomagardener.typepad.com.

Photo: Julie Wiatt

Take Home a Park
Takoma's Newest Garden Shop

Takoma's new garden shop is everything that Home Depot isn't. Yes, they will be selling plants, pots, furniture and cool stuff like sculpture and bird baths, but only the gorgeous ones we see in the most delectable gardening magazines, and at affordable prices. And it's located in Takoma's hot new commercial area on Blair Road, in the Landis Building near the Metro station.

Photo: Julie Wiatt

Steve Mackler, the primary green thumb at Take Home a Park.

The most UnHome Depot-like products offered at Take Home a Park are its first-class design suggestions to take home with the first-class plant choices, like great combinations for shady borders and other specialty gardens. \Also coming soon will be a series of workshops for do-it-yourselfers who want to take their gardening to the next level. Take Home a Park is an outgrowth of The Landscape Group LTD and TLG Design, which have been in operation since 1978.

The showroom will be open by appointment and on selected weekends starting April 2.

For more information call 202-291-1650 or visit www.TakeHomeAPark.com and www.TLGDesign.net.

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