How To Design A Low Maintenance Landscape: Ideas For An Easy, Beautiful Yard

​

It’s everyone’s dream to have a gorgeous yard that your neighbors envy, but make it low maintenance enough that it’s easy for you to care for. While it can be a difficult task to find this balance in landscape design, there are some ways to infuse low-maintenance landscaping ideas into your front and back yards. 

So if you want to learn more about how to design a low-maintenance landscape, you’ve come to the right place! Continue reading below as we discuss some low-maintenance landscape design ideas to make your backyard landscape design the talk of the neighborhood. 

What is Low Maintenance Landscape Design?

Let’s begin by discussing what this type of landscape design is before we get into some low-maintenance landscape design ideas that you can implement in your yard. 

As you may be able to gather, low-maintenance landscaping is an approach that requires minimal or no upkeep, but without compromising on the beautiful look of the design. 

Why Should You Go With Low-Maintenance Landscape Design?

The goal with low-maintenance landscaping is to reduce the amount of work you need to put into maintaining your lawn, leaving you with more time to enjoy it!

But, as we mentioned above, this doesn’t mean you have to have boring landscaping just so it’s easy to manage. When low-maintenance landscaping is done correctly, you are left with a yard that is absolutely stunning but isn’t a headache to take care of. 

Plus, this type of landscaping lets you take advantage of sustainable landscape design ideas and drought-tolerant landscape design ideas that require fewer resources to upkeep them. 

How to Design a Low-Maintenance Landscape: Tips for Pulling This Project Off

The low maintenance approach is very appealing for front yard landscape design; however, it’s not always easy to make this dream come to life on your own.

While the goal of this approach is to make your life simpler, there are many nuances and aspects you’ll need to consider during the planning stages to make sure it comes out how you intended. 

Here’s a simple guide you can walk through to design a low-maintenance landscape in your front or back yard. 

Create an Initial Concept

First, you need to create an initial design concept for your low-maintenance yard. At this point, you’ll need to consider some of the main factors that will determine the type of landscaping you can achieve, such as your budget, the function of the space, and the size of your yard. 

With these factors in mind, you can consider the style and aesthetics you want to achieve with your landscaping aside from being low maintenance. From there, you can begin to sketch out a mock-up of your dream landscaping so you can begin to bring it to life! 

You may go through some trial and error during this stage to get it right, but that’s to be expected when you’re designing low-maintenance landscaping for the first time!

Choose the Right Planting Features

One of the main elements of landscape design with any approach is the planting features you choose. Especially with low-maintenance landscaping, this step becomes increasingly important. 

Something you’ll need to take into account during this stage is the local climate, sunlight, and soil conditions of your area, as this will determine which plants you can feasibly include in your landscaping. Consider the seasonality of the plants as well to make sure you’re designing a yard that looks incredible year-round. 

Once you’re more familiar with the conditions of your area and yard, make sure to choose the plant species that are well-suited to your local climate, require minimal watering, and are low maintenance. 

If you go for multiple plant species, make sure you place them in your yard with other plants that have similar watering needs to make your job easier when caring for them. 

Decide Which Hardscape Elements to Build

The last element of your low-maintenance landscape design is the hardscape elements you’ll include–or anything in your landscaping that’s not alive. 

Again, you’ll want to opt for hardscapes that require minimal maintenance in order to truly pull off the low-maintenance landscape design. This means choosing materials that are durable and weather-resistant so they won’t erode or break down quickly and require frequent repairs. 

Elements like pavers, retaining walls, and terracing can help you control the erosion in certain areas of your yard, and make the space look visually appealing. 

If the budget allows for it, you may also decide to add a patio or deck to provide functional space and reduce the lawn care you’ll have to do.  

Low Maintenance Landscape Design Ideas You Can Pull Inspiration From

Now with a better understanding of what this landscape design style is, we can provide you with some low-maintenance landscape design ideas that you can try out for yourself. 

Create a Rock Garden

Landscaping isn’t solely about the plants and lawn you have. Especially for a low-maintenance landscape design, the hardscapes you include can make a big difference in whether or not you can achieve this style. 

Thus, creating a rock garden from gravel or river rock can be a great idea when you want to cut down on the need to mow, weed, and fertilize.

This can add a nice visual contrast as well, and you can place hardy, drought-resistant plants like succulents and cacti throughout to create a sort of zen garden that still has a green element to it. 

Add a Pathway

Another use of hardscapes in your low-maintenance landscaping is to add a pathway through your yard. 

This is a great idea if you already have a bare spot in your yard from a lot of foot traffic going through, as you will stop having to patch up the lawn, and instead create something that’s even more visually appealing and functional! It’s truly a win-win. 

Use Native Plants

One of the best low-maintenance landscape design ideas is to use native plants that are already accustomed to surviving in your area. 

Rather than choosing plants solely based on how they look, do some research to see which plants are native to your region and can thrive with minimal maintenance. 

Chances are, native plants will be a good match for the soil you have in your yard, in addition to the climate and amount of sunlight you receive. This means they can generally survive on their own without too much attention–perfect for a low-maintenance yard!

Add Ground Cover

You may want to opt for ground covers in your low-maintenance landscape design because they will all but eliminate the need for weeding or mowing. 

Aside from the practicality of ground cover, it also gives off a plush and full look to your yard, and they typically grow pretty quickly! This will keep your yard from looking sparse and barren, even if you’re going for the low-maintenance style. 

Incorporate Perennials 

Perennials are key when you’re creating a low-maintenance yard. These are plants that come back year after year, without you having to re-plant them each spring! 

Some common types of perennials include columbine, black-eyed susans, shasta daisies, iris, and plenty of others! 

They will each have their own specific care guides, so make sure you still pay attention to the level of sunlight and water they require. 

Plant Evergreens

Evergreens offer year-round beauty that many other plants do not. Hardy enough to endure even the toughest of winters, evergreens are super low maintenance once you’ve planted them. 

With options ranging from stately pine trees to low hedges and shrubs, you have tons of choices when it comes to selecting the right evergreen for your yard. 

If You Actually Want Your Landscape to be Low Maintenance, Enlist the Help of Michaelangelo’s!

You can definitely learn how to design a low-maintenance landscape–but with all the work that’s involved, you may not even want to go through the trouble!

There are many nuances involved in low-maintenance landscape design, and it’s hard to get it right if you’ve never done it before. So, rather than taking on the costly risks and doing it yourself, let the experts handle it so you can enjoy peace of mind.

To really get the low-maintenance landscaping you’ve always wanted–leave it to the pros. As the premier provider of landscape design in Alpharetta, GA, Michaelangelo’s can bring your landscaping dreams to life without you having to lift a finger! We even specialize in drainage solutions to protect your property and landscape design for the years to come. 

Plus, we can offer commercial landscaping maintenance and residential landscaping maintenance to really make this a low-maintenance investment. In other words, we’ll keep your property stunning year-round while you just sit back and enjoy its beauty!

Final Thoughts on How to Design a Low-Maintenance Landscape

Creating a low-maintenance landscape design is a wonderful approach that helps you have more time to enjoy your yard, and less time spent working on it! While this sounds like a great idea in theory, putting it into practice requires a lot of research, planning, and dedication to make sure it gets done right. 

So, after learning more about how to design a low-maintenance landscape, you can see why you’d want to hire a landscape designer vs DIY the project. This will help you avoid landscaping mistakes that could cost you precious time and money when you don’t know what you’re doing–and will leave you with a stunning yard that everyone in the family will love!

For the best landscaping in Alpharetta, GA, look no further than Michaelangelo’s. We have the knowledge and experience to help your ideas come to life and give you the dream yard you’ve always hoped for.