A garden is work, no question about it: planting flowers, watering and fertilizing, cutting shrubs and perennials and, last but not least, plucking weeds. However, you can greatly reduce these activities by preventing weeds from growing in the first place and by choosing the right plants to keep maintenance work to a minimum. This article will show you how to do it.
Mulch prevents weed growth
Prevent weeds in the first place
Pulling weeds is probably one of the most unpopular activities in the garden - and one of those that you basically never stop doing. Root weeds in particular can cause the gardener a lot of trouble, as they keep coming back and apparently just can't be killed. To limit the growth of these unwanted bed dwellers, there are a few practical ways:
- Put out a weed control (€21.70) when laying out the flower bed.
- Mulch the flower bed, for example with bark mulch.
- Create a gravel or rock garden bed.
All of these methods prevent the weeds from even reaching the surface in the first place. It also makes sense to carefully and deeply dig up the bed area before planting and to collect all the roots and plant parts. Then cover the whole thing with an impermeable film for a few weeks, which will cause any plants underneath to die off due to the lack of light.
The right choice of plants
Of course, a garden that is completely maintenance-free cannot exist, but thanks to a clever selection of plants, your garden will green and bloom almost by itself.
Criteria for plant selection
To achieve this goal, however, you should use the following criteria when choosing plants:
- Choose perennial plants.
- Annuals must be resown every year.
- Choose local plants.
- These are the best adapted and require little maintenance.
- Exotic plants are often difficult to care for or require separate overwintering.
- Choose plants that are appropriate for the location and soil conditions.
- Give preference to ground cover and other wide-growing plants.
- These cover a large part of the bed and look good all year round.
- Evergreen plants also make the flower bed look attractive all year round.
- Choose plants that require little or no pruning.
Easy-care plants for the flower bed
For a low-maintenance flower bed, these flowers are particularly recommended:
- Flowering ground cover: carpet stoneia, cranesbill
- Shrubs you don't need to prune: bell hazel, rhododendron, witch hazel, Chinese dogwood
- Perennials with a long flowering period: cranesbill, coneflower, purple coneflower, tickseed, scabious, lady's mantle
- Particularly long-lived perennials: forest goat's beard. Hosta, peony, daylily
tips
If you like roses but caring for them is too time-consuming, you can plant self-cleaning varieties such as 'Escimo' or 'Larissa'. The otherwise necessary summer cut is not necessary here.