Mowing the lawns and weeding your garden gets to all of us every so often. It is one of those jobs around the house that just get put off; it doesn't have the same urgency as grocery shopping, dishes, and laundry. I guess it is time to create a low maintenance garden, to transform the job that always gets bumped down the "to do list" to something positive. Let's face it, the small amount of time we have to enjoy our homes in today’s society should be just that, enjoyment!

How to still keep colour in a low maintenance garden.

The key to creating a garden that looks nice is to plan it, and create purposes for the different areas in your garden. If you know that you won't have time to maintain a lot of plants, it might be worth looking into different shrubs or trees to add colours. Your local gardening store should be able to tell you which low maintenance plants, shrubs and trees don't shed leaves or is best suited for your location.

Weed your existing flower beds and spray with weed killer. Cover them with weed screens and put bark, sea shells or gravel to decorate it, you simply pierce a whole in the weed screen for any plants that you would like to grow. This will not permanently remove your weeds, but it will heavily reduce you may have to deal with a few weeds still but not to the same extent as before.

That is one problem taken care of, now you may need to go back to the drawing board to decide how much lawn you would like to keep. I suggest that you keep some to make the garden look homely and inviting, the last thing you want to do is to turn it into a court yard look.

You could possibly build a deck, or extend the one that you have. Pave an area next to it and use it for a barbecue area. Make gravel or paved path's "frame" a feature in your garden this could be anything maybe a water feature or a pond, your imagination is your limit

A few tips!

If you have large concreted or paved areas you may want to look into getting an irrigation system installed, as they tend to “dry out” your garden quite a bit.

Depending on where you live your low maintenance plants may include birds of paradise, hibiscus, or even clematis vines. All of these plants will bloom throughout the warm season, but will remain as beautiful plants when blooms are not available. Combining plants and flowers keep the level of maintenance down.