1. Gardening All-in-One for Dummies – You’ve probably all heard of the “Dummies” range of books. This books lays out everything you need to know about creating your low maintenance garden in a really easy to read format. This book is available for Amazon for around $15 – $20 and we would highly recommend that you buy it as you will really learn a lot from it.

2. Better Homes and Gardens New Garden Book – This book is also available to purchase from Amazon for around $15 and contains tons of information, probably more than you will ever need in order to create your own garden. The book has many plant profiles and photos of different types of plants. The book will also show you exactly how to garden depending on where you live and will guide you all the way through creating your perfect garden, from planning what plants to buy, through growing lawns and growing vegetables.

Of course, these are just a couple of the books available if you wanted to learn more about gardening before you go ahead and do it yourself. We recommend that you search a good online retailer like Amazon, before you choose which book to buy and see which books suit your needs the best.

Although, if you really cannot choose, one of the two books we’ve listed in this article are always a good backup choice. You might even purchase both!

1. Coneflowers – These are great looking flowers and are extremely low maintenance. Coneflowers can be extremely pretty and come in a variety of different colours including Purple, white, orange, yellow pink and many others. These flowers traditionally bloom in the summer, but when we say summer, we mean all summer. Apart from the occasional deadheading, these flowers pretty much look after their selves all year round, so you can concentrate on more important issues.
2. Peony – This is another great looking type of flower that blooms in late spring/early summer time. As with the coneflowers they also come in a variety of colours including many different types of pink, white, different types of reds and even yellow. This is an old fashioned perennial and the plant actually does best if you simply just leave it alone, therefore it is extremely low maintenance. The plant does have some heavy double blossoms which may require staking from time to time if they don’t happen to have other plants to lean on. Most of the time though, these plants are able to stand tall all my their self and will pretty much grow perfectly without any attention whatsoever. Just remember to keep an eye on them from time to time.
3. Sea thrift – This is a beautiful looking plant and once again it blossoms in spring to early summer. The plant comes in a variety of colours including pink, rose, lilac, red or white. The foliage of the plant resembles a tuft off grass, while the flowers shoot up on stems and resemble small allium clusters. If these plants are deadheaded then you will normally get a repeat bloom. These plants only require a little bit of work from time to time such as cutting down the basal growth, however, this isn’t always required. These plants require very little work and are able to grow in rocky soils and even high winds and areas with sea spray.

We hope this has restored your faith in gardening and that you are able to see that you can have a fantastic looking garden that is full of plants without really doing any work at all.

Graceful Grasses For Year-Round Interest

Perennial grasses are easy plants. Once planted, they require very little attention, except occasional removal of dead foliage and old flower heads if they offend. Cutting back the dead foliage to ground level in early spring will encourage lots of new growth.

There are many types to grow, from compact dwarfs to huge plants that reach 2.4m (8 feet) or more. They can be used in beds, either on their own or in mixed plantings, to stunning effect.

Be cautious about mixing grasses among other plants, however, as some are difficult to control, and rampant species will soon take over a bed and become inextricably entwined with other plants, so clump-forming types are best.

The more spreading grasses are better grown in an isolated spot, but the smaller ones will work in a border if you plant them in a large container sunk into the ground, with the rim flush with the surrounding soil. Annual grasses will self-seed unless you deadhead them after flowering.

Ferns For Moist Shade

The intricate foliage of ferns makes these fascinating plants essential for moist, shady corners of any low-maintenance garden, where they will without doubt thrive without any intervention. Many die down in winter, but there are also plenty of evergreen species, and they are varied enough in shape and size to make an interesting planting despite the lack of flowers.

Planting Ferns

Most ferns prefer a moist, shady or partially shaded position, and will do especially well if you take time to prepare the soil by incorporating plenty of organic material. This is very important in an area shaded by a tree or wall, where soil is usually dry. If the soil is impoverished, rake a balanced fertilizer into the surface of the soil when you plant. If planting in late summer, autumn or winter do not use a quick-acting fertilizer.

1)    Water the fern thoroughly about half an hour before planting. It is very important that ferns do not dry out, especially when newly planted.

2)    Make a hole large enough to take the root ball. Firm the fern in carefully. Then water thoroughly so that the surrounding soil is moist down to the depth of the rootball.

3)    To help conserve moisture and maintain a high level of organic material in the soil, mulch thickly. Top up the mulch each spring.

You will have to sow self-seeders initially, of course. Decide on a position where the plants can multiply freely without becoming a nuisance. Suitable places are among shrubs and herbaceous plants, especially in a mixed bed, or in beds restrained by clear boundaries, such as a bed in a lawn. Sow only into well-prepared ground that is completely free of weeds. You may have to weed twice initially to ensure clear soil.

Maintenance of Self-sown Plants

After initial sowing, and each subsequent year, pull out any weed seedlings before they compete with the sown seedlings. You should be able to identify the desirable seedlings by the larger number with the same kind of leaf. As the seedlings become larger, hoe between them to control weeds. Once the plants meet, you should be able to stop weeding.

Where seedlings have self-sown too thickly, you may need to thin the plants in spring.

1)    Scatter annuals randomly. Avoid sowing too thickly, otherwise you will have more thinning to do. Rake the seeds in, first in one direction and then in the other direction if possible.

2)    Sow perennials such as lupins and columbines in small pinches about 45cm (28 inches) apart. Rake some soil over the seeds.

3)    Keep the seeds watered until they germinate and are growing well. If there are spaces between plants you could fill the gaps with a decorative mulch to suppress weeds. You will need to thin the plants out if a group have germinated together.

Self-Sowing Plants

Annuals Perennials

Calendula                                      Aquilegia
Eschscholzia                                 Digitalis
Limnanthes                                   Foeniculum vulgare
Lunaria                                          Lupinus