The garden is a hugely important part of the home, and one that you are probably going to be very keen to make sure you are taking good care of. If you find yourself wondering what you might be able to do here, there are a lot of things that can help. It is always helpful if you can do anything in your power to make your garden a lot more manageable, and that is something that you are going to be able to approach from a lot of different angles.
In this post, we’ll consider some of the best ways in which you can keep your garden manageable all year round. If you are taking on board some of the following, you should find that you are able to have a much better maintained garden, that it will look a lot better, and that you are going to be a lot more likely to succeed with any goals you have in mind for it.
Use the right plants
Your choice of plants is huge when it comes to keeping your garden well-managed. If you want to make it as easy on yourself as possible, you’ll want to think carefully about what kinds of plants you should opt for. Ideally, you will choose plants that suit the local climate, your soil, and how much attention you want to give them, how high- or low-maintenance they tend to be. Native plants are always a good shout, because they will fare well in the area and you won’t need to do much to help them along. Similarly for drought-tolerant species, and perennials as they are generally lower maintenance too.
You may also want to group plants with similar needs together, so that watering and general care are more efficient. This is a simple thing that can make a huge difference.
Find a seasonal routine
You should ensure you are always working within the season when it comes to garden care. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can do it all at once. You’ll have to divide your garden care by season, so that you have different jobs to do at each time of year. This is a really simple thing you can do which is going to help a lot, and you should make sure that you are aware of what you can do to approach this right.
For instance, during the spring, you’ll prep beds, plant new additions, fertilize the soil and start mulching the soil too. It’s also time to start getting ahead of the weeds, so that you can make this job easier on yourself in the summer. When summer comes around, your tasks will mostly be about deadheading flowers, watering less often but much more deeply, and doing all you can to keep pests away too. Weeds are going to become more of a problem, but if you acted well in spring, hopefully manageable.
For the autumn, you can start cutting back some of your perennials, clear any debris out that you might have gathered over time, and plant any new bulbs for spring that you might want to have. Then comes the fallow time of winter, where you have much less to do – but not nothing. You can focus on tools and planning here, and make sure that you are pruning dominant trees and shrubs. You can also start sketching out next year’s plan.
Make use of mulch
You will have noticed in there we mentioned mulch a couple of times. This is because it’s one of the gardener’s best friends. A good layer of mulch helps to suppress weeds, retains moisture, and improves soil health, so it’s something that you are certainly going to want to think about. You should make sure you are utilizing mulch in your soil wherever you can, and ideally you’ll want to replenish it at least once a year too. Ideally that will be done in spring or autumn, but any time of year will work.
Make use of tools
You’ll certainly find that gardening is much more manageable and a lot easier if you are making use of the right tools. There are a lot of tools that you might want to consider using, depending on your garden and your circumstance, so that is something that you should definitely make sure you are thinking about here. For instance, you could get by with a trowel, some pruners and a spade. Or you might have a need for a cordless leaf blower or something of the sort too. Perhaps you need even heavy duty stuff. It’s up to you, but make sure you are making use of whatever tools you might need to, and that you are doing everything you can to look after those tools as well. This is going to help a lot.
Scale to your lifestyle
Everyone has their own particular needs when it comes to their lifestyle, and you’ll want to make sure that you are scaling your gardening to those needs. This is something that you should definitely try to bear in mind, and it’s likely that you are going to need to think about it if you want to keep your garden manageable. In a simple sense, this means: avoid overplanting, and only have what you have the space and time to deal with and look after. Otherwise, it can quickly become overwhelming, and you might find that you struggle to really cope with it. The point of gardening should be that it is fun and enjoyable, so if it isn’t you might want to look into why that is, and scale back slightly.
As you can see, there are a lot of things you can do to keep your garden much more manageable at all times of year. These are really going to help you to enjoy gardening so much more.
