Garden Maintenance

When you create a garden of care-free plants, you are automatically taking steps toward reducing garden maintenance. When well sited, with the type of soil and exposure they prefer, the plants described in this book will thrive with little attention beyond minimal feeding, weeding, and watering. In this section we’ll share tips for providing your plants with the minimal care they deserve, and we’ll also help you time your efforts to the season when your care will do the most good.

This section includes information on getting more plant performance for less effort. You’ll also find advice on warding off problems when buying, planting, feeding, and watering plants, as well as tips for the minimal weed control and pruning that these plants require to maintain their health and good looks. Discover easy methods for multiplying your plants. Despite the natural resistance of these plants, the occasional flying or four-footed pest will visit your garden, so we’ll also describe methods of repelling and controlling these pests. A helpful Calendar of Care is a seasonal checklist for timing your maintenance tasks so that they don’t get out of hand.

No one wants a landscape that’s a source of tiresome work, and although some maintenance is unavoidable, here you’ll find ways to make it more enjoyable. Experienced gardeners wait for good weather and favorite times of the day to work in their gardens, whether they are doing things they enjoy, such as setting out new plants, or more formidable tasks, such as mowing the lawn. In a garden stocked with care-free plants, you have plenty of opportunities to pick and choose the green-thumb activities in keeping with your mood and what you want to accomplish on any given day.