A well landscaped garden is a wonderful thing. Who wouldn’t want to look out the window and see beautiful flowers, all fragrant, healthy and orderly? And yet, almost unbelievably, it seems that none of us have the time for this. If the climate where you live is favorable for growing a garden then you have an great opportunity to enhance your environment and have a beautiful living space but, on the other hand, you were to live in a cold, wet or windy place, or if your soil was dry or rocky, you have a lot more work to do. The question is, is there such a thing as low maintenance landscaping where you can get to have all the benefits of a well-landscaped garden without doing as much work as you might normally be called upon to do?

The simple answer is, yes, there is. But you do have to limit yourself to hardy plants to put make it all work.

The good news is though that it doesn’t cost any more to do low maintenance landscaping than it does to do the regular kind. You don’t need an extra-large budget. All you need to do is to learn a few low-maintenance landscaping techniques and plant the right kinds of plants.

Let’s start with choosing the right kinds of plants for low maintenance landscaping. Coniferous or flowering shrubs can be great low-maintenance plants. Not only do they not need a lot of watering or a lot of fertilizer, they don’t even need much pruning. Dwarf evergreens can do very well in a low maintenance gardening plan, too. Just pick ones that don’t spread out too much, and you’ll be fine.

That’s okay for the shrubs. What do you do when you want beautiful flowers in your garden? Perennials are your answer and. Not only do they ask for very little in maintenance, they’re also great for your budget. If you went with regular annual flowering plants, you would have to buy new ones every year. Perennial flowering plants on the other hand are like the gift that keeps on giving. You plant a bunch once, and they actually spread around your garden on their own.

No matter what kind of place you live in – hot or cold or shady or anything in between, you’ll find flowering plants that are very low maintenance just the way you want.

Grass is a very high-maintenance kind groundcover. If you’re looking for low-maintenance landscaping, choose Lily of the Valley, periwinkle or other flowering groundcover that’ll turn your garden into a riot of color for very little outlay.