Do you want to enjoy your yard and not spend all your spare time mowing, weeding, raking, and watering?
The answer to this dilemma is to alter your yard to make it low maintenance. Check out these five suggestions below to help you get started.
1. Invest in Mulch or Stone Beds
Fill hard-to-maintain patches of your yard with large beds. Clear away grass or weeds, prevent future weeds with a weed barrier, and cover with mulch, crushed rock, or pebbles. Add a centerpiece such as a palm, and a few accents such as firebush, dwarf ixora, or coontie that require little care.
Designated plant beds, especially the professionally installed kind with concrete curb edging, work exceptionally well to break the monotony of a large lawn and add beauty and interest without a high level of maintenance. Retaining walls work wonders to create similar beds on a slope.
2. Install a Sprinkler System
Keeping your lawn hydrated, especially in the hot summer months, can be very time-consuming. Installing a sprinkler system is the smart way to lower yard maintenance, keep your grass and plants healthier, and reduce water waste.
Hiring a professional service to design and install a system will also save you a lot of time and aggravation, and is worth every penny.
3. Patios and Outdoor Living
The quickest way to achieve a low maintenance yard is to create a large patio or outdoor living space. Every square foot of space you expand your patio is one less square foot of grass you need to tend.
Making a large area for outdoor dining, grilling, and entertaining increases the value of your home while reducing your overall yard workload. When possible, always opt for stone, cement, or pavers that withstand the elements better and require less general upkeep.
4. Perennials and Natives
Filling your plant beds with native and perennial plants and flowers creates a stunning burst of color through many seasons, but require much less care over annuals. Native plants are well-adapted to the region, which means they can naturally withstand weather fluctuations without any extra attention.
Perennials either reseed or regrow from bulbs each year, and pop from the ground when weather conditions are right. In temperate regions, such as in the south, many perennials such as Lantana, Mexican Heather, Pentas, and Bush Daisies stay green during the winter, so your yard effortlessly looks lush and beautiful.
5. Walkways
As with a patio, creating walkways between yard features, say the door of your pool cage and your dock, or the driveway to the garage side door decreases the amount of lawn you need to mow, fertilize, and rake.
Choosing paver stones or gravel with an underlying heavy-duty landscape fabric will keep the path looking neat and stop annoying weeds from popping up in the cracks.
A Low Maintenance Yard is Within Reach
Are you tired of sweating away hours every week trying to keep your yard looking neat? When you implement one, or all five, of these clever ways to create a low maintenance yard, you’ll be on your way to having the free time you deserve to kick back and relax with your friends and family!
