Low Maintenance Planting Ideas For Landscapers
Bring life to your gardens without making too much maintenance work for your clients by using some of these low maintenance planting ideas.
What proportion of the gardens that you build have the words ‘low maintenance’ in the client brief? I’ll wager its over 50%. But what can you plant that will show off your hard landscaping, create an amazing ambience and not overwhelm the clients with gardening tasks? That’s where a bespoke planting plan from those nice folks at My Garden Design could be the answer to all of your planting problems.
At Which Stage Of Landscaping Do You Think About Plant Choices?
Your planting choices may be limited by the stage that your project has reached before you consider the greenery. Certainly, in my experience as a landscaper, clients will often ask you to help with the planting when they can start to see their garden emerging from the soil.
In an ideal world, the planting would be thought about at the same time as they layout, especially when the client particularly needs a low maintenance planting plan.
Either way, the garden designers at My Garden Design are very experienced and happy to work with almost any scenario.
A detailed planting plan showing where to place individual species as well a list of plants to order from the supplier. A plan like this can save landscapers many hours of research as well as reducing the risk of plants failing due to unsuitability.
What Drives The Decision To Choose Low Maintenance Planting?
An important factor in creating a low maintenance planting time is to try to discover WHY the client wants to avoid plant care. Do they have limited time? No confidence in their gardening skills? Or perhaps there is a dislike of getting their hands dirty?
Maintenance is a matter of perception. If it’s difficult, painful or a chore, then people will want to avoid it. If it’s pure pleasure, they’ll be happy to get involved. So the client with physical disabilities may enjoy actually pottering about with raised beds. Whilst the client with time constraints might settle for a garden with automatic irrigation and/or a robotic mower.
A Few Low Maintenance Planting Ideas
Container Gardens
Containers are a great idea for low maintenance planting schemes. Particularly in front gardens where there is a worry that passers by (and their dogs) might not respect the space. Plants are lifted closer to the eye line and can comfortably be tended without bending down.
If containers are large enough, and plants are chosen wisely, there’ll be minimal need for watering. Include evergreen plants for structure, spring flowering bulbs for early colour, trailing plants to soften the edge of the container and consider wild flowers that will not need feeding.
A few well placed and beautifully planted containers adds kerb appeal to a nicely landscaped front garden.
Shrubs
You can’t beat a traditional shrubbery. They’re great for hiding fences and blurring the boundaries so that a garden feels larger. A collection of shrubs can help to ‘bed’ a property into the surrounding landscape. It can also create a sense of privacy and seclusion.
Think about the spacing in relation to the final size of the plants. Otherwise in a couple of years time your clients will be faced with an enormous pruning operation. Mulch well to keep weeds at bay and even consider using a weed proof membrane to stop the ingress of pernicious weeds.
Wildflowers
If you are going to use wildflowers think carefully about where they will be situated and which species you choose. The term ‘wild’ doesn’t mecessarily mean that those plants will be self sufficient in a garden situation.
Annual wildflowers such as poppies and cornflowers need to be sown into disturbed soil every year. Some clients might consider that to be too much maintenance. Perennial wildflowers can be fussy about soil type and will need occasional weeding in order to maintain the balance of species.
Wildflower meadows are marketed as being low maintenance. In reality, they’re not. Ok, so they don’t need mowing during the spring and summer months. But on high nutrient soils, which, lets’ face it is virtually every garden in the UK, a wildflower meadow will quickly be overtaken by grasses and the results may be disappointing in the long term.
Gravel Gardens
Gravel gardens are awesome, especially where a garden is inclined to suffer with drought. Incorporate lots of aggregate into the soil to improve drainage and then mulch plants with a thick layer of gravel. Add pebbles, boulders and perhaps a water feature for a more natural look and feel. Sedums, ornamental grasses and mediterranean herbs will thrive and look amazing in a sunny gravel garden.
A substantial amount of landscaping went into preparing the ground for this gravel garden but it’s the low maintenance planting plan that catches the eye
Living Walls
Never be afraid to think in 3D when it comes to planting. Fences and screens are an ideal foil for climbing plants. They don’t take up much room on the ground and can even be grown in containers if that suits the design better. Choose species that will grow quickly without becoming too big for the space and a have minimal need of pruning. Think too about aspect and soil type. Many climbers are need very particular conditions in order to thrive.
Alternative Lawns
Ah lawns. So many clients associate natural lawns with hard work. And in all fairness, if they want their lawn to be weed free, manicured and verdant all year round they will need to put in some work. However, a hard wearing, practical family lawn is not too difficult to maintain with a robotic mower and a twice yearly visit from a lawn care service.
If the idea of lots of grass is daunting for your clients. Why not suggest a species rich lawn, it’s basically slow growing grass studded with wildflowers. It can be mown once or twice a month in spring and summer and won’t need feeding. Once established a species rich lawn will also be reasonably drought tolerant.
For lawn areas that don’t receive a lot of foot traffic, sedum matting is a useful alternative. Or, you could opt for creeping thyme – another bee friendly plant which offers up a delightful scent when walked on.
Ornamental Grasses
These babies are so easy going it’s unreal. They bring movement and sound into the garden and ask for nothing in return other than an annual haircut. Just be sure to choose the right grasses for the garden. Some love sunshine, others prefer shade and there are big differences in their growing habits.
Mixed planting for a newbuild back garden. A planting plan like this brings instant maturity into a space and helps to make the space feel more homely
Low Maintenance Planting Plans From My Garden Design
If you are a landscaper struggling to decide which plants will enhance your hard landscaping AND behave nicely in the garden you are building, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the My Garden Design team.
Working with the garden layout plan that you already have, one of our skilled garden designers will create a planting plan that will knock your clients’ socks off AND earn you lots of word of mouth recommendations. We work to a fixed pricing plan, so you’ll know exactly how much to charge your clients.
Just think how much time a planting plan could save you. No wandering round the suppliers reading plant labels and trying to decide what to put where. And minimal risk of the plants failing because they’ve been put in the wrong place. Plus you’ll also be expanding your plant knowledge for future use.
What is there to lose?
Call today for a 15 minute demonstration of our online garden design platform.
