How to spend more time enjoying, not tending your garden
At long last, Spring is here, and the garden is getting into its stride. New treasures are emerging every day. It’s a pleasure to meander around with a cup of tea, delighting in the wonders of nature – until, that is, you spot the scruffy lawn edges and that rose you never got around to pruning. That gentle feeling of well-being can quickly turn into yet another bullet point on your To-Do list.
With evidence on the benefits of gardens and gardening for health and wellbeing, it seems a shame that our own green spaces, which are supposed to bring calm and tranquillity into our busy lives, can often produce the opposite effect. So, with this in mind, here are some tips to guarantee that your garden is well-maintained with the minimum of effort and time.
Don’t Mow, Let it Grow
If you have a lawn but don’t want to mow it every week, then keeping the edges neatly trimmed creates instant orderliness. What’s more, by neglecting to mow your lawn altogether, you are actively benefiting wildlife. By now, we are all familiar with No Mow May, an annual conservation campaign initiated by Plantlife in 2019, urging gardeners to stop mowing lawns during May to support biodiversity. But this practice needn’t be limited to May. There’s nothing to stop you from leaving your grass long until the end of the season, supporting insects right through spring and summer. Allowing grass to grow long enables wildflowers like daisies and dandelions to bloom, providing vital nectar for pollinators, such as bees and butterflies. Not sure you fancy the informality this will bring to your garden? Mowing a perimeter border and a central path through a wildlife lawn balances the need for a tidy appearance with habitat protection.
Chop and Drop
Little and often goes a long way to maintaining the garden’s status quo. If you like to stroll around your garden to unwind at the end of a busy day, you can deadhead as you go. Drink in one hand, secateurs in the other, a few minutes every day, and you’re done.
In every walk of life, there are always new ideas, and horticulture is no exception. The Chop and Drop method of pruning is a sustainable gardening technique, where trimmed plant foliage and spent flowers are cut up and left directly on the soil surface to decompose. This acts as a natural mulch, suppressing weeds, retaining moisture, and recycling nutrients back into the soil. Less time spent on weeding, watering and above all, clearing up.
Potted Perfection
Where urban, outside space is often limited to a patio, balcony or roof terrace, city dwellers must rely on containers, pots, and window boxes to cultivate plants and flowers. However, this type of gardening can be very labour-intensive and time-consuming. First and foremost, the larger the container, the better. More compost means greater moisture retention and less frequent watering, especially during hot weather. Arranging containers in groups also reduces water loss. Terracotta and stone may look The Business, but they absorb moisture from the compost faster than non-porous containers like glazed ceramic, plastic or fibreglass. There was a time, back in the day, when synthetic pots were sniffed at as second-rate, however these days it’s hard to tell the difference between fibreglass and lead tubs, or plastic and terracotta pots. Self-watering containers are also top options as they feature integrated reservoirs. Another plus is that larger containers reduce the need for constant repotting.
If you are time poor, then annuals such as busy lizzies or petunias are not a good option, as they require regular feeding and watering throughout the summer months, in order to thrive. Opt instead for perennials, such as hardy geraniums and colourful geums, which come back year after year. Small evergreen shrubs, like hebes and nandinas, will provide year-round interest. Mediterranean, drought-tolerant plants, like lavender, thyme and rosemary, are not only decorative but they are fragrant and edible too.
Prune Like a Pro
It’s a common misnomer that a garden consisting mainly of shrubs is low maintenance. In fact, if left to their own devices, shrubs can outgrow their allotted space, crowding out their neighbours and overpowering border displays. The task at hand soon becomes overwhelming, and it’s often easier just to throw up your hands and surrender to nature. But consider this: as it’s unlikely that every shrub in your garden will flower simultaneously, you should only have to prune one or two at a time. Subject to minor regional variations, use this pruning timetable as a guide rather than a rulebook, and you’ll do just fine:
- Prune climbing roses between December and February.
- Mid to late summer flowering clematis can be cut down to the first pair of fat buds from ground level in early February.
- Prune shrub roses mid to end of February. The best rose gardens to visit in the UK for spectacular summer displays include the historic, scent-filled walled garden at Mottisfont Abbey, Hampshire; Queen Mary’s Gardens in Regent’s Park, London, and the renowned David Austin Roses, Shropshire. These offer peak blooms from mid-June to early July.
The Rose Garden in June at Mottisfont, Hampshire, National Trust Images, Clive Nichols scale
Queen Mary’s Rose Gardens at Regent’s Park
- Buddleias in early March. Be brave; cut back to a pair of buds as low as 30 cm from ground level.
- Traditional mop-head and lace-cap hydrangeas should be lightly pruned at the end of March. Simply cut back the desiccated flower heads to the first pair of healthy, plump buds. In late summer, Hydrangea Valley at Trebar in Cornwall casts clouds of china blue and soft white that cascade down to the Helford River.
Hydrangea Valley, Trebah Garden
- Hydrangea Annabelle, however, celebrated for its massive, snowball-like white flower heads that bloom from early summer to autumn, can be cut back quite hard to a pair of buds about 25 cm from ground level, between the end of March and early April. Visit Darley Park, Derby, for the national collection of Hydrangea paniculata.
- End of March to early April for hardy fuchsias and shrubby salvias.
- If you need to restrict the growth of camellias, prune them after they have finished flowering, from the end of March into April.
- Evergreens such as pittosporum, grown for its decorative foliage rather than flowers, should be lightly pruned when all risk of frost has passed, around mid-May.
- Spring flowering deciduous shrubs, such as forsythia, philadelphus & weigela, should be pruned straight after flowering, between the end of May and the end of June. Â
Hopefully you are starting to get the idea…
When you align with nature’s rhythm and move away from the need to control your garden, regular maintenance becomes a pleasure rather than a chore; time gained is not wasted. Above all, let go of the need to be perfect.
