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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Is a large garden ever ‘low maintenance’?

37 replies

Moreveganice · 14/04/2024 17:24

We are moving house and hoping to buy a house with a much bigger garden. I am a keen gardener but not always able to do big hobs due to health issues/ working full time etc. the garden is currently beautiful and has around half left as natural woodland and meadow/ orchard. The rest is herbaceous perennials and shrubs with lawn in between. There are some veg beds which I would be using.
realistically how hard would it be to keep this sort of garden ( almost an acre) under control. ( DH is will be in charge of lawn moving and hedge trimming…

OP posts:
Yamadori · 14/04/2024 17:34

That wouldn't low maintenance, no. The veg plot in particular would need regular work.

BarrelOfOtters · 14/04/2024 17:38

If you can afford (and find) someone to do some of the boring work for a day or morning a week, that might help.

Friends with a large garden are retired and v fit and find it takes a lot of their time. They have a robot mower which frees up time.

It will take a lot of your free time up....but you cam probably introduce things to make it less hard work.

WaitingfortheTardis · 14/04/2024 17:42

Ours pretty much is low maintenance, but that's because we wanted it go wild in parts for the wildlife etc. We just mow the bit we want to use every now and again and do a little weeding. Weve sectioned off a large part of ours as a small orchard, so other than picking the fruit and doing the odd bit of trimming that isnt much work. When we have more time again we might reinstate some more parts of it like a veg patch etc, but for now we like it as it is.

Goldenthigh · 14/04/2024 17:43

We have a 'low maintenance' garden of an acre. It's tons of work!
im a keen gardener too but actually find I do less in this huge garden than when we had a smaller one because there's always just so much ongoing maintenance. It's always boring jobs, keeping on top of hedges, weeds, lawn mowing, strimming, chopping up logs, pruning. We have a reliable gardener now (very hard to find!) who does a couple of hours a week to keep on top of things so I've actually been able to pay attention to some of the flower beds this year. even so, I'm ignoring the veg beds this year, too much else to do.

soupfiend · 14/04/2024 17:44

It would work with a gardener. My parents is about 150 foot, possibly 30 or 40 foot wide

No veg plot, but gardener comes monthly, might be more in the summer. My dad does the mowing but wont be able to much longer I would think

I consider it a high maintenence garden even though it is largely lawn, big ever green hedges/shrubs along the sides and some plants the gardener tends to at the back, with towering bamboo.

Dont know what an acre is, cant picture that, sounds massive though

Lunaballoon · 14/04/2024 17:44

If your DH is happy to take care of lawns/hedges, it should be manageable as long as you don’t let the weeds run rampant!

HikingFromHome · 14/04/2024 17:46

I think it depends on whether you have a lawn or not…

As soon as you have to mow, then it gets hard. Natural wild areas work themselves (other than having to keep trees in check), as soon as humans intervene, it goes wrong.

Zebracat · 14/04/2024 17:46

Hmm that is a very large garden. The lawn stuff is quite a lot of it, if he includes edging , aerating and renovating the lawn. And paths. He also needs to spend fairly regular days helping on big jobs, like removing dead trees or sycamores you didn’t spot till they were 6 ft tall, mulch spreading, dump trips , compost making , tree pruning. Revamping borders, clearing bad weeds, fixing sheds, detangling hoses, painting fences, cleaning garden furniture ,and did you mention a pond?
If you want low maintenance, Don’t make any changes in the first year, keep on top of weeding, pruning and mulching. Start very small with your vegetables, choose a couple of things and do them right. Peas are rewarding, so are tomatoes.
If the people there have a gardener , I’d be begging for the contact details. I would have thought that if you can afford a garden that size, you can afford less than £100.00 a week to maintain it.it’s so much more enjoyable to garden when you aren’t permanently at the edge of chaos.
Sounds lovely though. I’m really not trying to put you off. And as the Estate Agent said to me when I hesitated about a smaller large garden, if it gets too much , just fence off the last two thirds and call it a nature reserve!

TheLiloAndTheSlowCooker · 14/04/2024 17:48

We have a large garden (not as large as an acre!) and like others quickly realised we were absolutely not keeping on top of it. We now have a gardener for the endless endless weeding, and are gradually putting in more perennials which take less effort.

SaltyGod · 14/04/2024 17:51

It doesn’t have to be high maintenance. We have a 3 acre garden and we don’t spend that long on it.

Gardener comes every few weeks for 2hrs and does strimming and hedge cutting. Mowing is 2hrs (DH does this). I go anything floral and pick fairly low maintenance options. We have some pots and baskets that I do and some veg beds (maybe 2hrs a week at most in peak season).

There are a few areas deliberately left wild that just get strimmed twice a year.

Its honestly much less time than I though but we have been careful in planning it to be low maintenance

user1497787065 · 14/04/2024 17:55

It's a lot more work than you think. It's not just about how long it takes to mow the lawn it's also the fact that when you are free to cut it it's pouring with rain so you can't and next week it's twice as long.

soupfiend · 14/04/2024 17:59

Its the bagging up and dump trips that I cant stand and we have a postage sized patio with pots!!!

Tried to book first thing this morning, no slots for today. Dreadful

CatherinedeBourgh · 14/04/2024 18:05

It depends on how you want it maintained.

I have a (much) larger garden than that, and although we all love gardening we're fairly busy and can't always dedicate all the time to it that we would want.

Hedges are once a year. My very long hedges can be done in a couple of afternoons if the weather holds. If you don't have time, it's not that hard to find someone to do them usually (I have teenagers, they do it).

Meadows etc. are also cut once a year (again teenagers in my case).

The lawn gets cut at most once a month from May to October, then not at all. We like the wildflowers, so let it get long and only cut it when it's getting really long.

That leaves the flowerbeds, and the veg plot, which are quite hard work and where we put most of our energy. I only do one new flowerbed a year, and plant them packed tight, so that there is less weeding to do. At this time of year is when it's worst. I'm not religious about removing weeds though, only where they bother me. Dh and the dc do the veg in deep beds, which do need daily watering (an automatic watering system helps a lot).

CatherinedeBourgh · 14/04/2024 18:10

soupfiend · 14/04/2024 17:59

Its the bagging up and dump trips that I cant stand and we have a postage sized patio with pots!!!

Tried to book first thing this morning, no slots for today. Dreadful

If you have a large garden you just make a compost heap in one out of the way corner and dump it all in there!

Iamtheoneinten · 14/04/2024 18:16

It depends on what you want it to look like.

Our acre+ garden probably looks like it is mostly low maintenance. There is a large central lawned area (and one to the front), and about nine largish beds full of perennials that might look like we have to do a bit to keep them nice (we do, we do fuck tons).
The rest of it is trees (small orchard area of about 18 trees mixed fruits) a row of evergreen trees (holly) an absolutely enormous amount of hedging (yew, blackthorn, hawthorn, laural, bay, privet) and lots of various other trees (oak, walnut, ornamental cherry, sycamore). It robably lt looks like it looks after itself. I cannot tell you how much work it takes to keep it all looking good and more importantly, keeping it healthy. We can't keep on top of it at all. We've set up our business about a year ago though so we (although doing well) don't really have enough money to have a regular gardener atm. We really need one, I love our garden, I don't love gardening!

I imagine we could have it laid out in such a way as to be less work but that in itself would cost money, and I don't think, unless you want to live in a wilderness it would be work free either, not at this size.

Iamtheoneinten · 14/04/2024 18:17

CatherinedeBourgh · 14/04/2024 18:10

If you have a large garden you just make a compost heap in one out of the way corner and dump it all in there!

I suppose that is one upside - I do have an amazing compost heap!

Stainglasses · 14/04/2024 18:23

I’ve got a very large garden and yes in the spring summer and autumn I spent a lot of time mowing. Others in the family help too.

the borders are well established so it’s not that weedy but I’m always aware it’s getting out of control.

We have lived here 2 years and it’s slowly getting less neat!

Honestly it is a big time commitment but reduce flower beds and have lawns and shrubs and it’ll be easier. Veg garden is the time consumer, which is why I can’t do that!

Iamtheoneinten · 14/04/2024 18:24

Also, one other thing about a huge garden - and I'm trying to build our beds as I go, filling with perennials to suffocate the weeds - and no more annuals! You can spend literally hundreds of pounds at the garden centre, and fill the car multiple times over, thinking you have done an amazing job and it's going to fill an enormous space. You can't wait to get them home and all in, imagining how you're going to transform the space. Til you get home and put the plants out...and realise they look absolutely tiny in your enormous space. Bit of a come down...

Moreveganice · 14/04/2024 18:37

Thanks everyone, we are not going to be in a position to pay a gardener if we stretch to get the massive garden house. I am a keen gardener and normally happily spend an hour or two pottering most evenings in spring and summer - I just am not always able to do the heavy lifting…

I grow veg now and have fruit bushes and trees but this is on another level😀.
the bottom two third are pretty ‘natural’ now and the rest is well established so I won’t be adding many/ any plants apart from veg seeds (very excited about having a green house) as I am always juggling space for my tomatoes and cucumbers 😀.

Yes to massive compost heaps - they are already in situ…

DH has experience of his parents even larger garden and he is quite keen. (He is keen to get back on a ride on lawnmower! And I shall remind him of that when the weeds take over…

OP posts:
Stainglasses · 14/04/2024 18:50

Oh I think that ok then, if you are keen. Little and often is obviously the best way to do it. I just find I have to be very relaxed about ground elder, thistles and nettles. I pull them up but if I was stressed by them it would be awful.

janedani · 14/04/2024 18:54

We have a large garden with big round perennial borders, an orchard and a veg plot. Husband uses a sit on to cut the grass and everything else I do...weeding, edging, new planting, dividing shrubs ect. It is a lot of work and will never be a 'show garden' but I enjoy doing it and have made changes to make it easier. Raised beds in veg garden, lots of mulch to keep weeds down, decent tools and removing some borders and putting grass down all helped. I also work full time and have 3 kids x

Churchview · 14/04/2024 20:04

With a garden that size you have to enjoy the work as there will always be something to do. Spending a whole week of days off a year cutting the hedge surrounding an acre plot might get old very quickly if it's not a passion.

My top tip would be to have a few sheds around the place all with the same tools in, because on an acre plot if you walk from the shed to a distant job only to forget your secateurs the long walk back and forth again is a pain in the arse.

soupfiend · 14/04/2024 20:21

CatherinedeBourgh · 14/04/2024 18:10

If you have a large garden you just make a compost heap in one out of the way corner and dump it all in there!

Thats a good point actually, sometimes its harder with a small garden because theres no where to put things

MereDintofPandiculation · 14/04/2024 22:07

Iamtheoneinten · 14/04/2024 18:17

I suppose that is one upside - I do have an amazing compost heap!

I sometimes feel the purpose of mine is to produce compost and the rest (vegetables, fruit, flowers) are mere by products.

coronafiona · 14/04/2024 22:09

Grass it all and pots, you'll be fine.
I d love one of those robo mower things too!