Low-Maintenance And Beautiful Northeast Landscaping Ideas With The Least Amount Of Effort

If you want a beautiful garden but do not want to be constantly digging, planting, weeding and watering, follow these easy gardening ideas. You can create a beautiful, low-maintenance landscape design around your Northeast home.

Buy perennials for one-time planting

To reduce long-term upkeep and maintenance, only buy perennials. Your local nursery will be able to point you to perennial plants that will come back year after year. In addition to seasonally flowering plants, make sure youplant  aesthetically pleasing evergreen bushes around your garden for yearlong beauty. Boxwood and laurel are great options. With perennials, you can sit back and wait for your garden to emerge every spring, no planting required.

Plant ground cover to hide weeds

Another important part of a low-maintenance garden is having perennial ground cover instead of exposed mulch or dirt between the main plants. Low-lying, sprawling leafy and flowering ground cover should cover most of the space below your plants. Vica, Lambs Ear, Thyme, Brass Buttons, Lamium, Lily-of-the-valley, Creeping Phlox, and Crested Iris are all quickly spreading, low-maintenance ground cover suitable for most Northeastern zones. Ground cover is aesthetically pleasing and smothers any pesky weeds.

Build raised beds to avoid time consuming digging and weed removal

Whether you plan to have your garden against your house or patio, or along a path in rectangular or square flower beds, you can create raised beds to reduce long term maintenance. A raised bed simply consists of bordering your garden bed with a short wall or barrier. Buy your wood or brick bed along with plant material, bags of dirt and mulch from your local hardware store or nursery. Store clerks will be able to advise you on how much dirt, mulch and plant material you will need based on square footage. One company that offers this service is AAA Cumberland Valley Tree & Landscaping Service Inc.

After building your bed, lay down two to four layers of newspaper over the existing dirt or ground. Then pile and lightly pack down store-bought dirt. Once you plant your desired perennial bulbs, bushes and ground cover, fill in, water and cover with a layer of mulch. This method means you will never have to dig into hard rocky soil, and will reduce weed growth.

Invest in self-watering tools

Invest in self-watering planters and submerged soaker hoses. Soaker hoses are placed under the top layer of soil or mulch, winding around the entire length and width of your flowerbeds. With soaker hoses, you do not need to lug out the hose or walk around with a watering can for hours. You can simply turn on your hose, go about your business, and turn it off again ten minutes later. For pots and planters, buy the self-watering versions to keep plants alive even when you forget to water or you leave town for a week. 

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