Are you hoping to plan a new garden on a budget? Do you want to enjoy the beauty without too much work later? You can have both!
Who wouldn’t love to have a beautiful garden that takes almost no maintenance and is affordable? Most of us find that it’s difficult to do anything practical or useful with our gardens, but there are actually a number of fantastic ways to design a garden that not only looks great but actually takes very little effort to maintain.
So in this post, we’ll be taking a look at how you can create a stunning low-maintenance garden on a budget.
Plan an Easy to Maintain Garden on a Budget
Here are five considerations when you are considering how to design a beautiful garden on a budget.
1 – Be mindful about your plant variety
Not only does having more plants get more expensive, but it also requires more maintenance. Different kinds of plants are going to have different conditions that they thrive in. Some might need more water, others might need less. Some might do better in pots, but others might be better planted in your garden lawn.
When thinking about plant variety, try to keep things down to a minimum whenever possible. This will not only make things easier to maintain, but it can be cheaper in the long run.
2 – Low-maintenance lawns
Lawns demand a lot of attention, especially if you have a relatively large garden or a lot of space in the backyard. There are a couple of ways to help you deal with this.
For starters, you could consider robot lawn mowers. These small devices roam around your lawn and automatically mow the lawn. They can change direction themselves and will even move around objects. They’re like Roombas, only they mow your lawn instead of sweep up dust and debris. Keeping your lawn mowed like this means you don’t have to bring out the big tools every few weeks or months to keep your lawn in check.
Alternatively, you could actually get rid of the lawn entirely. Laying down gravel paths can help prevent weeds from growing and will help water drain faster. You can also replace parts of your lawn with wide plant beds that create natural-looking borders and can look amazing if you pick the right plant variety.
3 – Avoid plants that need extra support
Anything that climbs or requires some kind of frame to grow with is going to take a lot of your time. Ivy is a great example of a plant that looks great when fully grown, but can be an absolute pain to maintain since it has a tendency to wrap itself around other surrounding plants because of how unpredictable and quickly it can grow.
If you’re going to grow something like ivy, make sure it’s one of the few plants in your garden. As long as you’re not balancing your time between lots of different plants that need artificial support, it’s perfectly fine to grow these types of plants to create a beautiful-looking home.
4 – Hire a gardener to help you
If you have a particularly large garden then you may want to consider hiring a gardener to help you. While this is one of the most common simple ways to maintain your garden, it can be rather expensive. This is especially true if you need to hire them fairly regularly. Ideally, you’ll want to take care of most of your garden tasks on your own, but there are times where you may need to trim hedges or take care of many different containers and flower beds.
If you simply don’t have time to take care of your garden then we’d suggest hiring a gardener. Ideally, you shouldn’t even need to reach this point if you want to create a stunning low-maintenance garden. If you feel like there’s just too much to handle, consider cutting back on the number of plants and flowerbeds you have.
5 – Avoid any kind of painting or staining for your fence and furniture
Lastly, make sure you avoid painting or staining anything in your garden. This goes for any kind of garden furniture and also your fencing. This is because painting and staining introduce more potential for wear in your garden, thus requiring maintenance. While you can create a beautiful garden by using paint and staining effectively, it also means you’ll need to re-apply it in the future. This can end up taking a lot of time and money, especially if you have to buy expensive paint.
It’s best to leave the natural color of your fence so that you don’t need to spend time maintaining it in the future. Similarly, try and make sure that you buy garden furniture that looks great without the need to paint or stain it.
The Takeaway on Planning a Garden on a Budget
With a bit of thought, creativity, and careful planning, you can have a garden on a budget.
Think beyond these five tips and you will find ways to save money. Be aware of opportunities that we did not dive into, such as these:
- Scour yard sales for inexpensive used statues, garden gnomes, or accessories you could fix up with paint.
- See if your green-thumbed neighbors have any plants they can thin out or share with you.
- Borrow gardening tools for a one-day project from a family member or friend instead of renting them.
By thinking outside of the box, you can plan a lush, bountiful garden on a budget.
She has a B.S.Ed. in Secondary Education/English and a Spanish Minor. In addition, she holds a Certificates in Natural Health and Herbology from accredited programs. She pursued these natural wellness certifications due to her love for herb gardening.
Despite freelancing to make a living, her love is "all things home."
Deborah grew up in a family that grew a large vegetable garden and a fruit orchard, helping her parents pull weeds and can home-grown foods as part of her childhood. In fact, she had no idea that she could purchase veggies and fruits in pre-packed steel cans until she went to college and made a food run.
Today, she lives in Bertie County, North Carolina, an agricultural rural area with more chickens than people. She lives with her husband and two rescue pets a sweet toy fox terrier and a cat who showed up one day and moved into the house. Together, they enjoy DIY projects, furniture refinishing, gardening, and canning.
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