Low Maintenance Garden – East and West

While most of us enjoy the full experience of gardening, a Low Maintenance garden can minimize the amount of time and work required to keep our gardens beautiful and healthy.  Here are some suggestions to make a garden lower maintenance for you.

Planting Plan:

• Understand your site, to reduce maintenance issues and help you make good plant selections.
• Provide healthy soil conditions, amending as needed.  Soil testing is available through the University of Minnesota for a small fee.
• Design a plan that is maintainable for you.

Plant Selection:

• Choose the right plants for your location – zone, soil, light and moisture. Tags at the nursery or plant descriptions in catalogs will provide this information.
• Purchase varieties that are disease resistant.
• Consider shrubs or evergreens, checking both height and width at maturity to be sure they will fit in your space.
• Choose plants that require minimum care throughout the growing season, eliminating the need for deadheading or cutting back.
• Select hardy plants that won’t need additional support or protection from wind or rain.
• Select plants that will require minimum cleanup in the fall and will continue to provide winter interest.
• www.landscapeplants.extension.umn.edu

Weed suppression: 

• Fill the garden with plant material to help block sunlight from the soil and discourage weeds and germination of seeds.
• Mulch between plants.
• Maintain a healthy environment since plants that are thriving can out-compete weeds.

Watering Requirements: 

• Choose plants which have similar moisture requirements.
• Reduce evaporation and frequency of supplemental watering by mulching or filling the garden space with plants.
• Track the need for supplemental watering with a simple rain gage.
• Investigate options for irrigation systems, drip hoses, soil moisture instruments, etc. to provide supplemental watering.

Plant selection for the Low Maintenance gardens

The following plants were chosen for our Low Maintenance gardens based on the conditions for this site:  full sunlight every day all season, no wind protection, well-drained soil with compost amended at planting, and an irrigation system that will supplement rainfall.

Ground covers: 

• Hardy Geranium (Cranesbill) – Ballerina, plus several varieties and colors.
• Phlox stolonifera (Creeping phlox) – multiple varieties in pink and blue
• Sedum – peeks of sedum throughout the gardens

Shrub:

• Dwarf Weigela – My Monet
• Variegated green and white leaves with pink flowers.  Mature size 18 inches high by 2 feet wide. Needs no pruning.  Deer resistant.

Strawberry pot:

• Multiple types of succulents

Blooming perennials:  Perennials providing blooms through the season and used by our pollinators.   All require full sun.  Minimum care.  Minimum disease issues.

• Echinacea (Coneflowers)
• Asternovae (Aster) – Angliae Hella Lacy
• Coreopsis (Tickseed)
• Nepeta (Catmint) – Walker’s Low  (Cut back after bloom, for rebloom)
• Hemerocallis (Daylily) –  Hyperion
• Asclepias incarnate (Swamp milkweed)
• Allium
• Stonecrop (Sedum) – Autumn Joy
• Tall Hardy Phlox (Phlox)
• Rudbeckia (Black-Eyed Susan)
• Spike Speedwell (Veronica)  – Pink Potion

Hosta:

• Hosta venusta – true species throughout both gardens

Grasses:

• Blue Elijah – Fescue grass  (Cut back seed heads to reduce flopping)
• Blue Heaven – Upright cultivar