Garden - reducing the work

Roses are supposed to be relatively maintenance free - unless you have deer who will over prune your roses so you don’t have any!

Be very careful about ground cover plants as they can be invasive. I have found yellow rattle to be one of these and also a vinca which has gone rampant, even growing up the acers.

If you can afford it get a gardener.

Please don't turn your green gardens over to concrete. This is a cause of flooding because there is nowhere for the water to drain. It also removes habitat for all the pollinators (think food chain) .

Other solutions:
1) think about living somewhere without a private garden
2) offer to share with someone who doesn't have a garden.
3) Shrubs around a lawn are really very easy care.
4) Let your grass grow long.
5) have a meadow. I did this last year on part of my huge lawn so that it didn't look too abandoned. I was encouraged by a friend who is a retired Botanic garden's botanist. I pulled out the invasive weeds when I noticed them but was thrilled to see there were orchids and native wildflowers coming through the grass. You can sow yellow rattle to discourage the grass.
6) get an easy-care lawn mower. I have a battery one now and it saves the awful job of servicing and starting the big petrol one.

I get someone in once a year to do the cutting back. My borders are packed with perrenials so that weeds are surpressed and I am working on reducing the number of pots. Not successfully at the moment but it's an ongoing project. You think that pots are easy but they are hard work. Watering in the summer and then trying to hack out pot bound roots. Not to mention lugging sacks if compost.

Perhaps make a list of your chores and mark those that are too arduous. Think about ways to eliminate or alleviate those chores. Certain chores can be hired out.

Like others say, more hardscaping, annuals in pots, smaller shrubs that don't need too much pruning or dead-heading.

My DH does most of the harder work; the thing I find the most labour is getting cutting down perennials at the end of fall. Some of these can eventually be replaced by small shrubs.

I enjoy doing the lawns, although I've reduced the amount of grassy areas. I never dig over the beds, just stir the surface and/or add fresh compost occasionally.

Mostly, it's shrubs, grasses, perennials and ground cover. They come back every year and need a prune back sometimes. I have some annuals in pots, just like tanith.

My real problem is next door's horrible hedge (100 feet long, 15 feet high). I've covered most of the sides with split bamboo screening. Still, I have to scale a ladder to cut a few feet at the top - and the top itself - on my side. It takes several sessions every year, and many aches and pains, to control it!

Lawns take so much time and energy, I dont want loads of hard landscaping spwish I knew the answer.. I looked in to having the front lawn removed and gravel and shrubs but the prices quoted were so high. For a smallish front garden one quote was £6000. I think shrubs and patios are the answer. It just the initial outlay.

I’ve got a big garden on a slope, and the only way to keep it under control is to mulch the beds. I’ve found that makes the biggest difference, because it was the routine weeding that was taking most of my time and energy.

I’ve put shrubs with some climbers in my garden with bulbs dotted around. I only put annuals in pots. The shrubs need pruning now and then but it is fairly low maintenance I just cut the grass and replant the pots.

We got rid or our lawn, which was very poor any way and put in 2 patios with tiered beds between. Life is so much easier and we employ someone to put the garden to bed, wake it up again, do the hedges and any heavy work.