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Maintaining a garden is tough. Often, they can quickly become horror stories full of weeds, shrubs and unkempt grass. This adds to your workload in tonnes of terrible ways and doesn’t help with stress.

Thankfully, there are some things you can do to ease this workload. Many people won’t be satisfied with their current homespace, but there are some things you can do to spruce up the exterior. This also includes your garden, and here are some simple ways to get it up to scratch in no time!

Avoid ‘Temporary’ Planting

A traditional, seasonal planting scheme can offer you great colour, but requires constant attention. If you have to constantly regrow your flowers to match a particular time of year, the fun will turn to labour.

Instead, invest in some all-weather perennial plants, and move away from a more temporary planting scheme. Focus on something more long-term, and you’ll see your workload decrease.

Choose A Slow-Growing Hedge

The faster a hedge grows, the more you’ll have to trim it. Luckily, you can opt for one that grows slower. Taxus baccata, Ilex aquifolium or syringa meyeri are all worthwhile choices. All these should halt that rapid growth that can quickly become an annoyance.

You can find more information on hedge selection here, to help choose something that’s right for your space.

Use Synthetic Grass

While many people prefer the natural feel of real grass, synthetic grass is also a viable option.

It gives you that look you want with absolutely none of the maintenance. Among their many other benefits, products like Multiturf won’t be slippery when wet, don’t need to be soiled and will not grow.

And, because you’ll be in complete control of placement, you won’t have patches of grass growing in all the wrong places. You can choose to have a huge lawn, tiny strips, or a simple lining around your patio. It’s up to you!

Avoid Shallow Water Features

As much as we’d like it, water doesn’t come free. If you’re someone who has a small pond or other water feature in their garden, you’ll want to avoid making it too shallow.

If it’s too shallow, it’ll dry up fast, meaning you’ll have to constantly top it up. Besides increasing your water bill, this just becomes a massive pain. Choosing a larger feature will ensure that it can self-regulate, even in hot weather.

Containers, Containers, Containers…

While it may seem a good idea to buy a container for every different plant you want to display, it’s not. This means you’ll have to feed, water and plant-up dozens of separate containers, which isn’t ideal.

Instead, choose a planter with a larger volume. For starters, these can hold a greater amount of compost, meaning you can get more plants in one space.

Additionally, more compost means less chance of drying out, as you’ll only have to water one big surface area. Beats watering many smaller ones!

With this article, we hope we’ve helped ease your garden workload a little. Remember, you can still get everything looking pretty by using shortcuts! And as a bonus, you’ll be adding value to your home, meaning you’ll get that money back when you sell.