The winter season is a great time to take stock of your landscape…maybe change it up a bit, or even start over with a new design. An important—and sometimes overlooked—consideration is: how much maintenance is required of your landscape? What makes a landscape high or low maintenance? While there’s no such thing as a no maintenance garden, there are a number of factors to weigh that will influence how much work it will take to keep it both beautiful and thriving.
Select the right plants for your space and needs
Don’t over-plant a small space with lots of shrubs that need constant care. Focus on plants that need interventions like deadheading and pruning 1 – 3 times per year, instead of all year long.
For easier clean-up, plant evergreens like Manzanita, ceanothus and rosemary, which drop fewer leaves than deciduous trees and shrubs.
Plant spreading ground covers that discourage weed growth. Stable varieties such as deer grass, thyme and ceanothus don’t need a lot of trimming.
Fruit trees are wonderful, but high-maintenance. They require scheduled pruning and fertilizing, produce a lot of debris, and often yield more fruit than anyone can actually consume. Scale the edible plants to your needs.
Go with a native plant palette that reflects your microclimate. Dry plants like California poppy and lavender go with a dry climate, whereas moisture-loving ferns and rhododendrons will struggle.
For fire safety, keep low-height plants at least 3 feet from the house and other structures. Otherwise you’ll be constantly trimming and pruning.
Minimize Water Use
- Turf lawns are the biggest consumers of water and require frequent mowing, weeding and fertilizing. Minimize or eliminate your lawn, and replace it with drought tolerant spreading ground covers.
- If you do want to preserve some green lawn space, we recommend installing an Eco-Mat sub-surface irrigation system. This underground drip system wicks the water throughout and ensures moisture is evenly distributed to all the roots. It virtually eliminates evaporative water loss and uses one-quarter the water of a typical lawn irrigation system.
- Plants native to our northern California climate zone tend to naturally require less water. And the less you water your garden, the less you water the weeds too!
Make Hardscaping Durable and Aesthetically Pleasing
Just as with a home remodel, the materials you choose for a garden design can be easier or more difficult to maintain.
Wood fencing will need eventual treatment and replacement, while elegant metal fences will last for years, weathering beautifully over time.
Flagstone patio pavers planted with ground cover between the stones look beautiful, but beware. Keeping weeds out of the greenery requires a lot of care, so you may prefer an attractive gravel or colored landscape glass instead.
Rocks, boulders and concrete are low maintenance and fire-resistant materials, excellent for retaining walls, steps, ledges and other features.
Accept a little natural “mess”
Like all living ecosystems, a thriving landscape can be a little messy. If you’re willing to live with some mess, your garden will thank you, and you won’t have to work so hard to maintain a pristine environment. As permaculture principles teach us, an integrated, balanced landscape ecology is healthier, which in turn requires less maintenance.
Rake and spread your leaves into garden beds to help build healthy soil, which in turn will produce healthier plants.
Retain water on site with rainwater harvesting systems, swales or ponds.
Feed the birds and pollinators with plants that attract them, such salvias, Echinacea and milkweed.
If appropriate for your property, install owl or bat boxes to help naturally control rodents or insects.
Cycle your kitchen waste into nutritious compost with a backyard compost or worm bin.
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We’re proud to announce that two of our projects won top awards for maintenance from the California Landscape Contractors Association (see below). Managing and maintaining landscapes goes far beyond “mowing and blowing.” It takes impeccable attention to details: deadheading, irrigation, mulching and so much more. If your landscape needs some TLC, call us to discuss a maintenance plan: 707-789-9786
Equinox won the 2021 CLCA Management Sweepstakes Award for this residential property, located in Corte Madera.
Also located in Corte Madera, another one of our projects won CLCA’s 2021 First Place award for medium sized residential maintenance.