It’s a myth that you need to spend hours in the garden every week to maintain bright, beautiful, bountiful blooms. No matter your zone, shade levels, and yard size, you can achieve a breathtaking garden overflowing with flowers without clearing out your schedule to keep up with it. All it takes is a bit of planning, some know-how, and picking plants worth their weight in free time.
Why Everyone Should Invest in a Low-Maintenace Flower Garden
Gardening is great for your mental health and overall wellbeing. Getting in touch with nature is calming and reduces stress, while flowers have been proven to reduce depression and anxiety and boost your mood.
But not all gardeners have the time or experience to maintain a complex garden. With a low-maintenance garden, everyone can benefit from flowers and interacting with nature.
And your local wildlife will appreciate the blooms and nesting spots, as well.
Flowering Plants Free of Fuss But Full of Blooms
When it comes to plants that thrive without needing a lot of maintenance, you cannot beat perennial native plants. This is because your area’s native plants are made to thrive in the conditions you naturally have to offer. This means you rarely have to water them since they’re adapted to your soil, sun, and weather. As a bonus, native plants can also improve your soil over time because their roots penetrate deeper than nonnatives’.
Native perennials also have a natural defense against your local pests and diseases. This means less troubleshooting and using fewer chemicals to treat pests.
What Native Plants Thrive Throughout Most U.S. Zones?
The first step to creating a low-maintenance flower garden is selecting plants that will thrive in your area. Identify your zone then find perennial plants designated as appropriate for your region. As perennials, these plants will return year after year without the need to buy more or replant.
The U.S. covers a wide array of hardiness zones. We sorted through some of the most prolific native plants that do well almost anywhere in the continental U.S. You can always doublecheck using the National Wildlife Federations’ Native Plant Finder if you’re unsure.
Here are some of the best native perennials for an easy-to-care-for flower garden:
1. Purple Coneflower
Coneflowers will bloom year after year and are tough as nails. These beautiful, showy flowers will be alight with blooms from June to October in most regions, and they’re beloved by birds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.
2. American Viburnum
This petite shrub offers the flower garden an even green backdrop, clusters of white flowers, and ravishing red fall foliage. Not only will this shrub add height to the garden, but it also attracts nesting birds.
3. Black-Eyed Susan
Black-eyed Susans are sunshine in plant form. These brilliant yellow flowers truly pop and can be seen from a distance away. Furthermore, they naturalize quickly, so they will fill in well to create a bright and full display of showy flowers.
4. Coreopsis
Coreopsis blooms from spring into fall in many U.S. zones. It is a lower-growing native that will enchant your pollinators and multiply annually. With this lovely native plant, you never need to deadhead or prune them back. Plus, they add rich color to the front of your garden.
5. Hibiscus
Hibiscuses offer large blooms all summer and into fall. This shrub comes alive with ample blooms that your pollinators will love, and you don’t have to lift a finger to care for it. If you want to keep it more petite, you can prune it almost any time of year.
6. Sedum
Sedums are highly drought tolerant and a unique way to add a fun texture to the flower garden. With clusters of hundreds of blooms, you will find that these plants are as pretty as they are easygoing.
7. Bee Balm
When it comes to pleasing bees, it’s hard to beat bee balm. This lovely native plant produces joyous flowers throughout summer.
How to Arrange Your Low Maintenance Flower Garden
When it comes to organizing your flower garden, you don’t need to be a master gardener to produce an attractive, healthy garden overflowing with gorgeous flowers. Here’s how to ensure your plants will shine their brightest in harmony with one another:
- Measure your garden bed area.
- Begin picking out plant varieties with contrasting heights, flower colors and shapes, and textures.
- After selecting which flowers you want, note how big your plants are likely to get. Divide your garden bed area by the size of your plants. Give each a few inches of a buffer to prevent them from touching or overcrowding each other.
- Order an odd number of each variety you want. It’s better to go with fewer than too many.
- When your plants arrive, position taller and larger plants toward the back of the garden bed and shorter plants toward the front.
- Variation adds charm and interest, so play with alternating plants throughout the space. Stagger bloom times to even out interest over the extent of the flower garden.
- You can plant some groups of three plants together if you have the space. This will create some areas with a larger impact.
- Before digging your holes, step back and observe your plants. Envision them fully grown and in full bloom. Adjust any plants you feel would look better elsewhere.
Gardening Is for Everyone
You don’t have to have an expansive yard or naturally green thumb to create an impressive yet low-maintenance garden. All you need is a small area of the yard or a collection of pots to plant and enjoy native flowers.
Side effects include smiles, satisfied pollinators, ravishing color, compliments from the neighbors, and a feeling of accomplishment.
Want to learn how to create a container garden? We’ve got you covered.
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