July 6, 2025, 4:23 am | Read time: 5 minutes
A beautiful garden doesn’t have to require a lot of work; it can be quite low-maintenance. By choosing the right plants and planning the design thoughtfully, you can enjoy less effort and more variety, blooms, and life.
A garden that requires little work yet remains green, blooming, and full of life might initially seem contradictory. However, those who start aligning with the site’s conditions and let nature co-garden quickly realize: A garden doesn’t have to be a burden. A low-maintenance garden primarily results from two things: a well-thought-out plant selection and a design that utilizes natural processes instead of constantly counteracting them.
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Plants for a Low-Maintenance Garden
Choose the Right Location
Plants placed in unsuitable locations cannot fully thrive and are much more susceptible to diseases and pests than those growing in their ideal spots. For instance, lavender in full shade will look as sad as a barrenwort that has to bask in the sun all day. All this can be avoided by not planting on a whim but by researching thoroughly before planting and ensuring each plant is in the right location and soil.
Consider the Space Needs of Mature Plants
A common mistake in plant selection: placing a plant that will grow large over the years in a spot where it won’t have enough space in the long run. For example, planting a serviceberry right next to a path. Initially, the young plant may seem almost lost in such places, but over time, it becomes impassable, and pruning becomes a constant task throughout the gardening year. It’s better to account for the expected size of the plant from the start, even if the area initially looks sparse. The open spaces can be easily used for annual summer flowers, short-lived perennials, or annual vegetable plants in the first few years.
Choose Native and Robust Species
Native species are often the best choice because they are best adapted to the climate and seasonal rhythms. They require neither winter protection nor extensive care measures. Particularly attractive are wild perennials such as yarrow, creeping bugle, lady’s mantle, wood anemone, columbine, goat’s beard, mountain mint, bellflowers, knapweed, chicory, or carthusian pink.
Ground Covers Against Weeds
Ground covers are a great way to design larger areas in the garden with minimal effort. The plants are placed so that a seamless carpet of plants forms relatively quickly. This makes it much harder for weeds to germinate, and the watering effort is reduced because the soil retains moisture longer due to the complete coverage. In semi-shaded and shaded areas, plants like periwinkle, barrenwort, Japanese sedge, and Waldsteinia thrive. Sunny areas can be planted with sand thyme, lamb’s ear, creeping phlox, catnip, and other ground-covering plants.
Rethink the Vegetable Garden for a Low-Maintenance Garden
Many gardeners associate vegetable gardens with constant digging, pre-growing vegetables, sowing, staking, pinching, and fertilizing. However, there are numerous edible plants that require much less effort, are long-lasting, and undemanding, while also providing reliable yields. Fruit trees, as bush trees or spindles, are suitable for smaller gardens, as are berry bushes and herbs. Vegetables can also be low-maintenance if you opt for perennial varieties that are planted once and harvested for years. These include rhubarb, Jerusalem artichoke, asparagus, perennial kale, walking onion, horseradish, artichokes, wild garlic, Welsh onion, and Chinese artichoke.
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Garden Design That Saves Work
Think First, Then Plant
A low-maintenance garden is not only created by choosing suitable locations and robust plants but also by how you structure it. Those who sensibly divide areas, cleverly place paths, and clearly define spaces from the start save many work steps later, as tedious maintenance or repair work is less frequent. A typical mistake: beds border directly on lawns without clear separation. While this initially looks natural, it often leads to grass growing into the beds, making mowing a challenge. A simple lawn edge would have saved a lot of work.
Wild Hedges Instead of Formal Pruning
Classic formal or pruned hedges require one thing above all: regular trimming. Those who want to save themselves the effort can plant wild hedges. They need to be tamed only occasionally, blend harmoniously into the garden landscape, and provide habitat for numerous animals. Suitable for such hedges are hazel, elderberry, cornelian cherry, serviceberry, blackthorn, hawthorn, medlar, oleaster, dogwood, hawthorn, or spindle tree.
Reduce Lawn Areas
A lush green ornamental lawn can look very nice, but it demands a lot: mowing, fertilizing, watering, aerating, patching bare spots, and removing weeds. Reducing lawn areas saves a lot of work. A very low-maintenance and ecologically sensible way to reduce traditional lawn areas is to convert them into flower meadows. Flower meadows are particularly species-rich on nutrient-poor and dry soils, as perennial wildflowers like scabious, viper’s bugloss, or cowslips can outcompete grasses. A soil that is too nutrient-rich can be impoverished by adding sand. Once a flowering meadow is established, you can retire your lawnmower, as such meadows are only mowed once or twice a year.
Mulch, Mulch, Mulch
Open soils require more care than mulched ones, as mulch protects the soil from drying out quickly and from weed growth. So, if you cover your soil well, you’ll need to water and weed less.
Create Wild Corners
Not every part of the garden needs to be perfectly tidy like a living room from a brochure. Those who find space for a wild corner, where nature can more or less do as it pleases, save work and create a small paradise for numerous species. Leaf and stone piles can remain here, as can deadwood. Mowing the lawn, weeding, pruning, collecting autumn leaves–all tasks that don’t arise in a wild corner. Only if a species spreads too much can targeted intervention be helpful.