25 Low-Maintenance Landscaping Ideas—From Artificial Turf to Xeriscaping

Photo: Life Created

When it comes to designing your landscape and implementing your backyard ideas, work smarter, not harder with low-maintenance landscaping. “A traditional American lawn takes tons of maintenance and water and doesn’t really attract any wildlife,” says Camille Cimino, a Los Angeles–based landscape architect at Nature of Things, a firm specializing in low-maintenance, drought-tolerant designs. Luckily, a beautiful landscape design with undeniable curb appeal doesn’t have to be synonymous with hours of backbreaking lawn care and upkeep.

“I create spaces that are low-water and low-maintenance,” Cimino says. “But also lush, diverse, and seasonally stacked to have different things blooming around the perimeter all year long.” You really can have it all. If you’re planning to revamp your yard anytime soon, know that with a little planning and preparation, you can ditch the mowing, weeding, and watering and thrive in a hassle-free outdoor living space.

How do I landscape my front yard for low-maintenance?

With low-maintenance landscaping, it’s important to consider which aspects of your yard actually require maintenance before you get too involved with back or front yard landscaping ideas. Minimizing the lawn is always smart, since mowing can take a lot of time and effort. “Gravel or mulch is great for cutting down on yard work and creating a space to spend time in,” Cimino says. You could introduce more hardscaping elements, like a larger driveway, a concrete patio, or walkways that decrease the amount of lawn space. If you go this route it will take a little more thought and consideration on how to keep greenery to the yard.

Blythe Yost, a landscape architect in Pearl River, New York, and cofounder of Tilly, an online landscape design company, says the easiest way to have low-maintenance landscaping is to use plantings that thrive in your region. “These can often be natives—which we encourage—but also plants that require less care,” she says. For example, if you have a sunny yard and plant perennial flowers that prefer shade, they’ll need more water sprinklers and require more upkeep to stay alive.

What is the lowest-maintenance garden?

“I consider the greatest maintenance task to be weeding,” Yost says, noting that a low-maintenance garden would be one that eliminates weeds as much as possible. To do this, she recommends planting plenty of flowers in garden beds, so the weeds don’t have any room to grow. “Beds should be full of plants with little mulch visible in between,” she says. Keep this in mind as you’re figuring out how to plant grass seed in the fall and spring.

Cimino specializes in creating meadows, also known as tapestry lawns, in front yards, which she believes is one of, if not the best way, to create a low-maintenance garden. “A meadow is essentially the opposite approach to a field of grass,” she says. It involves native plants, wildflowers, and different grasses. “It does not need to be heavily watered, because a lot of the grasses and wildflowers are selected to harmonize with the surrounding climate and its natural rainfall levels,” she adds.

How do I start a low-maintenance garden?

The simplest way to start a low-maintenance garden is to include only those elements that will be easy to care for and use little water. Start by thinking about your lawn: Will you opt for gravel or mulch in place of a carpet-like turf? Should you add hardscape elements, like these retaining wall ideas that don’t require extra cutting or pruning?

Once you’ve made a game plan, research low-maintenance and native plants that grow well in your area. Stacy Ling, a master gardener and author of The Bricks ’n Blooms Guide to a Beautiful and Easy Care Flower Garden, explains that native plants are “naturally adapted to local conditions, requiring less water, fertilizer, and overall fuss. Plus, they often attract beneficial pollinators.” As you narrow down the list to hassle-free contenders, dig deeper by researching if specific plants are particularly well-suited for your region and your existing landscaping. This step will make the growing season mostly maintenance-free.

How do you do a simple landscape?

Cimino suggests thinking about your yard like an amphitheater. “Create a ‘stack’ of plants that are tall in the back, then medium, with short plants in the front,” she explains. You want to pay close attention to textures and colors, as the right assortment and balance of those two elements will add visual interest to the landscape design.

“Simplicity is one of my favorite landscape strategies, as it’s underutilized but can be extremely effective,” Yost adds. For a sophisticated look that requires minimal effort, she recommends creating masses out of pared-down complementary plantings. “For example, layering boxwood with ornamental grasses will offer evergreen and structure, while there is whimsy and movement from the grasses,” she says.

How do I create an inexpensive low-maintenance yard?

The great thing about low-maintenance landscaping is that it can be low-impact on your wallet, too. There are many ways to create the look you want on the cheap, and perhaps even for free. Score free plants by joining local gardening groups either in person or online through a platform like Facebook or Nextdoor. It is not uncommon for gardeners to end up with a surplus of plants, particularly after they thin out their overgrown perennials to keep their gardens healthy. Look out for these types of posts in early spring and fall when gardeners start splitting vegetation. Additionally, plant swaps have become a great way for home gardeners to add variety on the cheap.

Utilizing large grasses and adding in ground cover plants, will also keep your landscaping budget low. These plants take up space and expand to fill in garden holes. In essence, doing some of the work for you!

Below, browse 25 low-maintenance landscaping ideas—from ornamental grasses to container gardens—to gather inspiration for your yard.

Low-maintenance landscaping ideas

Tip 1: Proper spacing

No matter which of these tips you choose, it’s important to recognize that plants that are too close together end up competing for light, water and other resources, making them more susceptible to disease, and making your job as caretaker a whole lot harder. Ling suggests grouping “plants with similar needs for sunlight and water together…[which] reduces competition and ensures each plant receives the optimal resources it needs to thrive.” When creating your layout, focus on ways to make the garden simple to maintain.

Tip 2: Understand native plants

Native plants have developed a symbiotic relationship with the wildlife in a specific environment for thousands of years. When grown in the appropriate habitat, they tend to require less work and less water. As an added bonus, they’ll naturally attract wildlife and pollinators, too. A quick search via a web browser (type in your city or county + “native plants”) will yield results for the most popular native plants in your area as well as the nurseries that carry them.

Tip 3: Opt for ornamental grasses

“I love bunch grasses,” Cimino says. “They’re easy to take care of, and they bring movement into the garden as they blow in the breeze.” For one front yard, she incorporated Carex pansa grass, which is a go-to in many of her projects. It acts as a lawn replacement and can be mowed if desired, but only needs to be watered about twice a month.

Tip 4: Plant ground cover plants

Ditch your lawn mower and opt for ground-cover plants. “Lawns are usually the highest maintenance because they need consistent watering, fertilizing, weeding, and regular mowing,” agrees Cimino. Not only is ground cover downright beautiful, but these plants also help prevent weeds and erosion by covering any bare spots in the soil. Once planted, ground cover spreads to create a carpet of vegetation and fills in gaps, which means less work for you in the long run. Some examples of great ground cover include:

• Creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera): This sun-loving plant produces colorful spring flowers that range from white to vivid purples and pinks. It will come back year after year.

• Golden star (Chrysogonum virginianum): This plant pops out yellow flowers from spring to late summer and can stay evergreen in areas with mild winters. It works well in shady yards.

• Creeping thyme (Thymus praecox): This plant grows well in many different climates and in USDA Hardiness Zones 4–9, which includes a wide swath of the country, from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine. It produces fragrant, early summer blooms that pollinators love, and is drought-resistant.

Tip 5: Plant succulents

Cimino often incorporates succulents, which require significantly less maintenance compared to other plants, but still offer a vibrant pop of green. Succulents also give your landscaping a sculptural quality that you can’t get with regular grass lawn.

Tip 6: Companion planting

Adding plants that keep pests away and strategically pairing them with those already in your garden is called companion planting. Not only is this technique beneficial to both plants, but it adds to the overall biodiversity of your garden. This method “offers a natural and aesthetically pleasing way to deter pests and create a thriving garden ecosystem,” says Ling. Try planting marigolds, which have a potent scent that repels nematodes, aphids and whiteflies. Or plant chives, which repel Japanese beetles and carrot rust flies. “When you embrace companion planting, you’re not only minimizing the need for chemical pesticides but also…this harmonious interaction between plants can lead to more robust growth, improved yields, and a more sustainable approach to gardening,” says Ling.

Sam Niemann, the founder of Grown By Design, a Chicago-based design firm, and Founder of Bleume, offers a related tip: Plant what he calls sacrificial plants that “attract pests to encourage predators” to feast on that plant and not on your garden.

Tip 7: Plant vertically

This space-maximizing technique not only adds more growing room to your garden, but also puts your plants at a height that makes them easier to maintain. Vertical plants are also less likely to develop diseases and acquire fungus, as their leaves are elevated and not sitting in the soil. This also means that they have a chance to thoroughly dry out. Without low-hanging leaves and fruits, pests also have trouble decimating the plant. For all of these reasons, try out trellising cucumbers or guiding wisteria vines over an arch.

Tip 8: Shrubs and trees

Niemann says that if shrubs and trees are planned out in a thoughtful way, they “can be one of the lowest maintenance parts of the garden.” He suggests choosing varieties that make sense for your space—be it their size (think ones that don’t require frequent pruning), or by selecting varieties that don’t produce fruit (rotten fruit gets messy and needs to be picked up).

Ling also recommends taking into consideration how tall and wide a tree will get at maturity—measuring to account for growth that could eventually block your windows or pose a threat to the exterior of your house. “It is important to read plant labels and plant descriptions carefully before making the investment of time and money,” she says. Her low-maintenance shrub suggestions include boxwood, spirea, and hydrangea; for easy-care trees, she opts for redbuds, serviceberries and Japanese maples.

Tip 9: Meadow garden

Like Cimino suggested above, meadow gardens are inherently low-maintenance. These beautiful gardens, dotted with native grasses, wildflowers, and other meadow-type plants are not manicured, but rather, allowed to grow wild. “Well-planned meadow gardens provide space for wildlife and pollinators and reduce a garden’s reliance on fertilizers and supplemental irrigation,” notes Niemann.

Ling says part of the allure of meadow gardens is that they “boast a rich mix of easy-care grasses and wildflowers that bloom in succession throughout the seasons, creating a vibrant and ever-changing landscape.” This effortless elegance is much easier to take care of compared to traditional lawns, or neat flower beds. Ling continues, “Forget about frequent mowing, watering, fertilizing, and the use of pesticides: these gardens thrive on their own, offering a beautiful, sustainable and low-maintenance landscape solution.” To create a meadow garden, research which grasses are native to your region and do well with the type of soil you have, then try to find species within that range that bloom at different times throughout the growing season.

Tip 10: Create easy-care flower beds

Pack your plant beds as tightly as possible to escape the weeding grind while enjoying pretty flowers, Yost recommends. “Although not a foolproof method, it will reduce the frequency of both weeding and mulching,” she says. Bonus: DIY garden beds give your landscaping a colorful jolt with less work.

Tip 11: Plant perennials

Another way to keep your garden maintenance low-key is to plant perennial flowers and plants. These plants will last longer than two years, although their lifespans can be much greater than that. With perennials, you only have to plant them once (that’s less work in itself), and they come back year after year. Popular perennials include daisies, hostas, and hibiscus.

Tip 12: Split your perennials

If you’re a couple years down the line on your low-maintenance garden, it may be time to start splitting your perennials. Dividing perennials is a simple way to add additional low-maintenance plants into your landscaping while also keeping them happy and healthy (and you’ll have plants to swap with your neighbors). Experts at the University of Minnesota Extension suggest splitting perennials every few years to give the roots more space to grow, lessen competition for nutrients and water, and most especially to produce more blooms.

Splitting plants is fairly easy: First, dig up your entire plant, pull apart the roots gently, and then cut them into multiple pieces with a sharp tool. Lastly, replant your free, low-maintenance plants throughout your garden. Don’t forget to water them once in the ground. Separate perennials on a cloudy day when the sun won’t scorch the exposed roots; and it’s best to wait a day or two after the plants have been watered. For more information check your local extension, like the University of Minnesota Extension or PennState Extension.

Tip 13: Pick low-maintenance plants

“We used soft agaves and hard agaves of different sizes to make the landscape look more natural,” Cimino says of this yard she designed. Flora like agaves, aloes, and Phormium tenax don’t require pruning and are high on Cimino’s recommendation list when it comes to low-maintenance plants.

Tip 14: Curate a cottage garden

“I would probably consider a cottage garden as the most low-maintenance, as it’s the most forgiving,” Yost says. This type of garden is generally more informal and makes use of relaxed borders, dense plantings, and native plants. “Cottage gardens are more about whimsical flowers and winding paths without the formality and structure of a formal garden that will require frequent pruning,” Yost adds.

Tip 15: Enjoy evergreens all year long

Many evergreen trees and bushes are extremely tolerant to different weather and growing conditions. Not only is their durability commendable, but they won’t require hours of leaf raking in the fall the way deciduous trees like oaks and maples do.

Tip 16: Invest in a container garden

Container gardens can be ideal for yards with limited space, but they can also be smart options for those trying to create less work for themselves. Using pots lets you add color and life to a space, but doesn’t require building garden beds or digging up plots of soil. It also means that you can include plants on patios or gravel in lieu of a water-demanding lawn.

Tip 17: Explore xeriscaping

Xeriscaping is a practice in landscape design that aims to create spaces that limit or eliminate the need for irrigation completely. Plants that are drought-tolerant are always a good choice in xeriscaping. Keep in mind that, if you’re xeriscaping, you need to account for natural water resources and include hardscaping designs that can promote water movement to certain areas of the yard.

Tip 18: Incorporate mulch

In this Cimino-designed yard, the lawn is completely eliminated in favor of mulch. The space also features ferns and a hammock tied to a citrus tree. “It’s just proof that you can make an attractive and inviting place to spend time that does not involve a lawn,” Cimino says.

Tip 19: Go for gravel

Consider using gravel in place of grassy turf, especially if you’re in a drought-prone Southwest region. Add a few flower beds or low-maintenance shrubs for extra greenery to enliven the backyard space with color and vegetation.

Tip 20: Use concrete pavers

Concrete pavers are a bit like outdoor tiles and a popular flooring option for patios, walkways, or driveways. Leaving grass as an accent along the pavers reduces the amount of lawn you have to maintain without completely eliminating green spaces.

Tip 21: Dive into a natural pool or pond

Natural ponds use plants and other biological agents to naturally clean and maintain the pool. Once installed, they’re extremely low-maintenance, though they can take longer to build and be more costly, compared to other pools.

Tip 22: Look into artificial grass

If you’re not quite ready to ditch your lawn, but also not eager to pull out the lawnmower every week, artificial grass may be an appropriate option. These days, retailers have perfected the synthetic lawn with fluffy grass mats that look pretty realistic.

Tip 23: Time irrigation systems to cut down on lawn labor

An automated sprinkler system is another way to cut back on your lawn care. If you’re tending full-sun flowers that could require more water when days get too hot, a timed sprinkler system could be just the solution, if you’re not looking to sweat while holding a water hose.

Tip 24: Incorporate nonliving elements

Add a little variety, creativity, and texture to your landscaping by incorporating nonliving elements like sculptures and fountains. Not only can features like these be practical, but they also elevate your yard: A bench is inviting, art is beautiful, a nectar feeder attracts hummingbirds, and a birdbath will provide water for other pollinators.

Tip 25: Precise watering

Speaking of irrigation, Ling considers a drip-irrigation system to be a smart investment. She says this method of watering “offers a sophisticated solution to the chore of hand watering.” This type of setup delivers targeted hydration directly to the roots, which cuts down on both waste and disease risk. Take this already low-maintenance solution a step farther with a programmable timer, allowing you to schedule watering for a truly set-it-and-forget-it way to care for your plants.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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