With the warmer months approaching for many people across the globe, you may find yourself getting itchy feet when it comes to transforming your garden. Whether you’re someone who has maintained it well throughout the year or you’ve simply let it remain and become overgrown, improving your garden’s appearance can be quite the maintenance-heavy challenge.
Achieving big results, especially in a small garden, will involve the use of smart tools, intentional planting, and reducing traditional, high-maintenance turf areas.
Rethinking Your Lawn Care Setup
When it comes to your lawn, even with a small garden, the sheer amount of lawn you have to contend with can be a problem.
Therefore, it’s good to strategize to maximize your efforts and improve the appearance of your lawn in general.
Ditch the traditional lawn
The traditional lawn can be quite the upkeep, which is why some homeowners may look to scrap the traditional lawn with the use of artificial turf or making use of different textures and materials like gravel, pavels or low-maintenance groundcover plants.
These alternatives can be much more effective and less hassle than mowing your lawn every few weeks.
Switch to battery-powered tools
Replacing heavy petrol mowers with a battery powered lawn mower is definitely easier to handle and store away.
You don’t need to be competing with long cables that become tripping hazards or potentially get chewed up by your lawn mower by accident.
Battery-powered tools are much more efficient and often provide a more durable, long-lasting investment.
Invest in a robotic mower
A robotic mower is a good way to keep on top of your traditional lawn when you don’t have the time, or you want to cut the cost that comes with getting a gardener out every few weeks.
Investing in a robotic mower might set you back a fair bit, but the investment it provides in terms of keeping your garden well-mown without having to lift a finger is worthwhile.
It’s also a great one for small lawns because a robotic mower can keep up with all of that.
Simplify edging
Creating a permanent, low-level edging with gravel or bricks helps to avoid time-consuming trimmer work.
This is an extra job that can often be a hassle to do, but if you’re replacing that edging with something different, then it takes away or simplifies the work at least.
Let the grass grow longer
If you’re not fussed about achieving that perfectly manicured, low-cut lawn, then it’s a good idea to allow the grass to grow longer. This requires a lot less frequent mowing and also benefits the local wildlife.
Designing for a Larger Feel
When it comes to small garden spaces, it can feel quite cramped. However, how you approach the garden’s design will really help to improve the feel of the garden, in terms of size.
For example, a lot of homeowners forget about the vertical space on offer, which is endless. Use walls and fences, or trellises for climbing plants like ivy and jasmine. This helps to add greenery without using valuable floor space in the process.
The use of light colors is great for helping a space feel brighter and larger. Light-colored paving and gravel or fences help to reflect light. That can be useful for a garden that has a small and shaded space.
Dividing the garden into distinct, functional areas is important to help make the space feel deeper and more intriguing. Those zones are great for helping define the space and make it feel a lot larger than it actually is. It also provides an opportunity for different members of the household to enjoy different areas of the space available.
A few large, well-chosen planters and pots can help make the garden feel less cluttered and more dramatic as a result. It also means you don’t need to worry about doing too much gardening.
Tips for Low-Maintenance Planting
When it comes to maximizing relaxing time within your small garden, you want your planting to be fairly low-maintenance in terms of upkeep required.
With that being said, a few tips for low-maintenance planting include the following:
Right plant, right place
When selecting your plants, it’s all about finding the right plant for your garden’s climate and conditions, as well as the right placement.
Select native and hardy plants that are used to thriving in your local climate and soil. This will reduce the need for any fertilizer and will minimize the amount of watering required, too.
Perennials over annuals
It’s good to focus on the plants that will return every year without you needing to constantly replant. With that in mind, consider planting perennials over annuals. This will help reduce the amount of maintenance that’s required when it comes to tending to your garden.
Use mulch
A good way of helping your garden thrive and to reduce the amount of effort you personally have to put into it it’s worth adding some mulch to the space.
Applying bark or gravel mulch helps to suppress the weeds and lock in the moisture. It also helps to rescue the need for weeding and watering too.
Try no-dig gardening
Implementing no-dig gardening methods is useful in order to minimize the back-breaking efforts it takes for soil cultivation.
This is helpful for those who are less mobile and do not want to get down and dirty too often in their garden.
Small Garden “Must-Haves”
The small touches to your garden will make a big difference to the functionality and appearance. These must-haves are something you’ll come to appreciate very quickly.
- Storage solutions – Use multi-functional furniture from benches that double up as storage boxes to storage bins that don’t require much in the way of effort to move.
- Cohesive designs – Stick to a limited palette of colors to avoid any visual clutter.
- Flexible lighting – Add some fairy lights or solar-powered spotlights along pathways, especially to create an ambiance in the evenings.
The importance of a well-kept garden
It’s definitely important to keep your garden in good shape, not just for an aesthetic benefit, but it’s a vital contributor to the household’s health, environmental sustainability, and, of course, the property value.