Labour Saving Gardening (part 1)

When I get the chance to talk with the people who view the blog there are a number of  recurring themes. However, by far the most interest is shown when I explain that gardening need not be all time consuming. I have said before that there are so many would be gardeners who are seriously put off by the thought that a garden will consume all their spare time. This is a genuine concern for people with pressurized jobs, family commitments or even other hobbies such as those which involve obligations to team sports. Consequently, it is of little surprise to find that gardening is a leisure activity particularly popular with middle aged and/or retired people in Britain, as the graphic below would suggest.

Consequently, I have promised to write a series of blog entries with the explicit theme of labour saving top tips. Some of these have already been mentioned in previous posts but I thought it would be more than helpful to consolidate and expand on the most useful hints I can give for time poor but keen gardeners.

The best place to start is by recognizing the elements of maintaining your plot that are the most time consuming and, by far, the most obvious is the tyranny of the well manicured lawn. Therefore my most important top tip is:

reduce the size of your lawn

 

Bagheera the previous feline resident

The same corner of the garden today

This might involve some significant redesign (as the two photographs left illustrate changes in the upper part of the garden)) but beware replacing one time consuming feature with another. At this point I should make it abundantly clear that I am not advocating a wholesale replacement of your lawns with paving or heaven forbid decking or the ultimate crime of artificial grass but I do suggest that you might find it appropriate to selectively reduce the area devoted to grass. There is no doubt that lawns are the most time consuming element in most gardens. They require regular mowing, edging, feeding, scarifying, aerating, treating for moss and weeds and generally repairing. So reduce your acreage of lawn and reduce the time it will demand.

Alternatively learn to love a lawn that by intent is less bowling green pristine and more naturalistic. Allowing daffodils to naturalize will mean that the mower need not be employed until early summer, as the foliage of the daffs should be left in tact until it has died back naturally. This will ensure a decent display next year. This is a simple technique which we use in the grassy slope at the front of the house. A braver alternative would be to devote some of your grass area to meadow, which can be created from scratch with a proprietary or customized seed mix, alternatively a wild meadow can be laid in a pre-sown "turf" roll. While this can be extremely effective it is quite hard to achieve a pleasing effect.

The reduction in lawns has been a trend for over a decade but, personally, I would not be without some grass (providing that you have the room to spare). If for no other reason, I will be keeping some grass for the two pennine cats to sunbathe upon!