Labour Saving Gardening (part 2)

I must state at the outset that I am an avid fan of having water in a garden. No matter what the size of your plot there will be room for a water feature of some sort. The sound of moving water is so relaxing while the majority of features are a real boon for all manner of wildlife. Consequently, my next top tip for a labour saving garden is
                                                 install a water feature
and in most instances, the larger the better.

While some people may be put off by the initial task of designing and building your pond, once this has been completed to your satisfaction, a water feature is remarkable low maintenance. For instance the pond above, close to the patio requires an annual maintenance clean up, including servicing the pond and its filter. This at most will be an afternoons work. Every few years the lillies may need re-potting or some new marginal plants adding but after this there is little effort required, other than scooping out any excess weed or oxygenator growth.

The fact that we do not keep fish in the pond does reduce the effort but this decision was made at the very beginning as the ponds are modest in size and the two cats do not really need any more distractions. The balance of plants and water is not a difficult task to achieve and so we rarely have any issue with discoloured or cloudy water.

In reality, I am confident in saying that a pond is the biggest time saving addition you can ever make to your garden. However, you might have to factor in the time consumed by just idling by the water and watching the wildlife go about their business.