What constitutes a low maintenance garden?

After:  Updated colourful garden, 2 months after installation

We have never been asked to design a "high maintenance garden" yet;  everyone wants a "low maintenance garden."  So what is a low maintenance garden?

Before:  Original garden with lawn

First, this depends on the maintainers.  Is the homeowner someone who enjoys spending some zen time once a week pushing around a lawnmower?  Or perhaps the homeowner enjoys mindless weeding and deadheading while listening to books on tapes.  Alternately, a hired hand could be the only person ever to set foot in the garden.  These factors need to be considered when designing a garden.

Second, for a garden to be low maintenance, it must be designed for the environment.  Plants are chosen according to soil conditions, the amount of sun available, the drainage patterns, and the traffic patterns in and around the garden.


The garden pictured here is one that has evolved over its 35 years.   The original garden was a developer's special:  Azaleas and Junipers.  The homeowners introduced various favourite plants over the years: sometimes choices were appropriate;  other times not.    Live and learn.  

The children became adults and moved out.  Then came grandchildren, so low maintenance evolved into lawn.  Lawn is easy to cut, and somewhere for the kids to play.  The grandchildren grew up, and the owners could no longer mow the lawn.  Now they were dependent on the kindness of neighbours to keep the entrance welcoming.  So the next evolution was introduced.

The advantage is that now the owners are very familiar with their garden:  the soil conditions, the amount of sun available, the drainage patterns, and the traffic patterns in and around the garden.  With all of this information, and a better sense of plants available, the garden is now a colourful, low maintenance garden.

Plants grow, so plan ahead

Thuja plicata (RedCedar) hedge

This photo portrays an excellent example of a short sighted landscape design.  This RedCedar hedge is planted 1'-0" from the public sidewalk, and on 3'-0" centres, or 3'-0" apart.  There is not a hedging shrub in cultivation that should be planted 1'-0" from the sidewalk, because every plant needs space to grow.  However, RedCedars in particular need a lot of space.

For instance, RedCedars grow in the wild to 170-250' (50-70 meters). One of the features of a red cedar is its buttressed trunk which can be 6'-0" in diameter at maturity.  Although these cedars will never reach those dimensions, they will easily and quickly form a hedge 6'-0" deep and 10'-0" high.

My guess is the homeowner requested an inexpensive, fast growing hedge for privacy. The RedCedar hedge will definitely provide privacy for the homeowner quickly, and it is the least expensive of hedging shrubs.  But the hedge will not stop growing once it has provided the privacy;  the hedge will continue growing for years, and for years the homeowner will have to pay to have this hedge trimmed.

Hedges that are repeatedly pruned hard become stressed.
Hedges that grow beyond their required height are
expensive to remove.

All formal hedges have to be trimmed regularly to maintain shape, width and height.  But when a hedge is planted so close to a public sidewalk, the public's right of way becomes an issue.  There are also often municipal issues of not obstructing an area within 2'-0" of a public sidewalk, and in this case, site lines at an intersection.

Even with pruning, the trees in this hedge will continue to grow in girth, and the trunks and roots of the RedCedars will eventually lift the public sidewalk, making it uneven.  The solution to levelling the sidewalk may be to remove the concrete, cut all the roots of the hedge, and re-pour the sidewalk.  This will be a solution for the sidewalk, but not a solution for the hedge.

A better solution is to choose an appropriate hedging material during the design process. The appropriate hedging material may be more expensive initially, but will be cost effective during its lifetime.