Is there such a thing as a low-maintenance and attractive garden?

To answer this it is worth considering the relative input required to maintain different types and styles of garden and planting. In terms of plants, the highest maintenance groups are climbers, formal hedges, lawns, roses, perennials and annuals. They will all require multiple interventions each year including pruning, cutting, feeding, deadheading and tying in. Turf in particular requires weekly maintenance nine months of the year, making it – despite some people’s protestations – very high maintenance.

Perhaps the way to achieve a low-maintenance yet attractive garden is to go for a limited palette of flowering evergreen shrubs and grasses while converting the turf to meadow.

Contrasting with turf and high-maintenance plants are the low-maintenance options including conifers, grasses, heathers and evergreen shrubs. These, particularly the conifers and heathers, require virtually no maintenance at all. But are they attractive? People in the 1970s certainly thought so, but that low-maintenance look has fallen from favour. So, is there a planting palette that’s both low-maintenance and beautiful? Lots of people opt for the gravel-with-scattered-planted-pots option but in my experience this requires extensive watering and weeding, making it medium- to high-maintenance.

Perhaps the way to achieve a low-maintenance yet attractive garden is to go for a limited palette of flowering evergreen shrubs and grasses while converting the turf to meadow. Not all evergreen shrubs and grasses fit the bill, though. Some shed leaves year-round and certain grasses break up and blow around the garden like an exploded haystack! So, is the solution to allow some or all of the turf to go over to meadow while introducing select evergreen flowering shrubs and sturdy grasses? I think this palette may be the solution, but it will take some design skill to make this disparate set of plants work together.

Evergreen shrubs alone could easily feel like a supermarket car park due to their solid stature, so I think some lighter, freer plants are needed in the mix as well.

Perhaps the place to start is to pick the most attractive evergreen shrubs. These might include the likes of escallonia, rhaphiolepis and leptospermum. All of them provide a fairly long season of flowering and don’t constantly drop big leaves. Choisia, camellia and olearia work, too. But evergreen shrubs alone could easily feel like a supermarket car park due to their solid stature, so I think some lighter, freer plants are needed in the mix as well.

Evergreen perennials are perhaps the ticket here. Plants such as bergenia, epimedium and heuchera require minimal interventions but provide a shorter, softer contrast to the shrubs. However, this planting could still feel a little heavy, so I think the final component could be plants with long, strappy leaves such as phormium, astelia and carex. They will all billow around in the breeze, adding a lightness to the planting. But, to get a really soft, attractive look I’d throw in some deciduous grasses as well.

Some, such as molinia or panicum, break up in the winter but a few choice miscanthus would add a softness, don’t break up and only need pruning once a year in early spring.

An alternative to this palette of plants, is what’s often called New Wave, New European or Matrix planting. Much of Sheffield’s’ city centre is planted this way, thanks to years of research and experiment by Professors Nigel Dunnett and James Hitchmough. Essentially the plantings mimic the Piet Oudolf look – all wild, woolly and meadow-like, with a range of grasses and perennials. With the right mix this approach can provide colour for eight or more months, has a natural aesthetic and only requires pruning to the ground once a year in early spring.

So, can a garden be low-maintenance and attractive? I think the answer is a tentative ‘yes’, but it may require a shift in aesthetic appreciation. My evergreens-and-grasses option will certainly work and look attractive but lacks the soft ephemeral quality of a mix planting. Equally the matrix-planting approach works in terms of being low-maintenance, but requires the gardener to perhaps change their perception of attractiveness to include the faded beauty of spent perennials and grasses in winter.

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