9 Low-Maintenance Garden Design Ideas for a Relaxing, Effortless Outdoor Space

I posted a few beautiful gardens made from small courtyards. Some flower lovers have questions, such as "What should I do if there are too many mosquitoes?" "What should I do if it rains on the outdoor sofa?" "The maintenance cost of building a beautiful garden will be very high. What should I do?" and so on. Juanzi can easily answer other questions, but how to reduce the maintenance cost of a beautiful garden in the later stage is a bit of a headache. To create a "paradise" that belongs only to yourself and your family, and a low maintenance cost, you don't need to work hard on maintenance all day long. Of course, some strategies are needed. If you want zero maintenance, that's fine. No garden, no maintenance!

1. Extend the living space
It is beautiful to turn your own courtyard into a garden, but if you want to have a party or barbecue with your family, or invite friends, there is no good place. Why not try to extend your living space, add rest areas, dining areas, children's play areas, and other areas in your own courtyard, which can also reduce the planting area in disguise. The garden becomes smaller, but the living space is extended. The garden is not all of our lives. And the later maintenance is naturally reduced.

2. Don't lay the lawn
Some flower friends asked me how to lay the lawn in the courtyard. And my advice is not to lay the lawn. The lawn looks good, but it takes a lot of time to take care of it, and it requires certain maintenance skills. Even so, it will slowly degenerate in 2 to 3 years at most. You can try to design some other landscapes to reduce the area of the lawn, or directly choose suitable ground cover plants to replace the lawn.

3. Plants should be suitable
When we build a small garden, we must be very cautious in choosing plants. Not only should we choose what we like, but also choose plants that are suitable for regional planting. It is best to choose plants with strong vitality and outstanding adaptability. This can not only reduce the cost of cultivation, but also reduce a lot of care time. Even if these plants are more expensive and the initial investment is higher, we must make up our minds to plant them. Otherwise, the seedlings will die every year, and you have to replace them every year, which is not only expensive but also troublesome.

4. Replace flowers with green plants
Most varieties of flowers and plants are seasonal, and the flowering period is relatively short. These flowers and plants require a lot of your time to maintain. If you just want to beautify the courtyard, you don’t have to plant flowers, and the maintenance time is limited. You can try to create a garden without flowers. You know, a pure green garden can also be extreme and so attractive, and we may not need such extremes. There are many varieties of flowers that are easy to raise and bloom all year round. You just need to choose carefully.

5. Can grow naturally
Many people have heard the saying that things will turn against themselves when they reach their extremes. The same is true when creating your own garden. You don’t need to pursue beauty. For example, in a corner or an area, create a vegetable plot, or simply let it grow naturally. Nature is also very magical. Not all weeds grow, or strong winds, or birds will bring a seed, which can bring you surprises.

6. Simple water landscape
A beautiful water landscape is not only expensive to build, but also has high maintenance costs in the later stage. The cost of electricity, water, maintenance, etc. will be very high. So, why not choose a simple water landscape? Even if it is a different stone trough, filled with water, or one or two small fish, it is also a water landscape. Although it is a bit simple, it saves you a lot of maintenance costs.

7. Choose perennial plants
When we choose flowers and plants for our garden, we often ignore whether it is herbaceous or woody, whether they are annual plant or perennial plants. What I want to say is that we can reduce the planting of annual plants and deliberately choose some perennial flowers and plants. In fact, many perennial flowers and plants are better than some annual grass flowers. In this way, a lot of maintenance costs can be reduced invisibly.

8. Covering
You can treat your garden as a large flower pot and plant some flowers and green plants in it. What we often do is to lay a layer of moss, or ceramsite, charcoal blocks, etc., on the surface of the flower pot, and the purpose is to moisturize and prevent weeds, especially the growth of weeds. So, in the garden, laying a layer of broken bark or broken wood chips is very practical, which can not only prevent weeds from growing, but also add luster to your garden.

PS: Now in many urban greenings, especially in road green belts, you can see a lot of colorful bark-like paving materials. It is also very good to lay this product in the garden. For some plots of exposed loess, laying them can at least save the time of weeding, and also reduce the maintenance cost invisibly.

9. Leave a place for leisure
Building a garden in a small courtyard is to create a leisure and relaxing space for yourself and your family, so that you can get close to nature and enjoy this beautiful moment. Then, you can set up a hammock or put a few chairs in any corner of the garden, which can make you and your family completely relax in the garden. So you can enjoy the joy brought by the garden happily, and you will not feel bad when maintaining it.

Summary:
Don't waste your own courtyard. Create a beautiful small garden. According to the above method, you don't need to spend much maintenance time and cost. What do you think? Finally, let me talk about a question. If you really don't have the talent for building a garden, you can hire a professional design and construction team, just like decorating your own house. Just like a friend of mine, he hired a company called Shengdu Home Decoration when decorating his house. Unexpectedly, they are very good at designing and constructing gardens. After understanding, I know that they are really strong and absolutely reliable, which is much better than you abandoning it or building something that is out of place. I am Juanzi, thank you, everyone!