Too lazy for gardening - need to pick low maintainable plants that are pretty

[Booksandotherstuff]

Hi guys
Hoping for some wisdom, after having a good hack at the overgrown garden, I'm hoping to put some nice pretty plants in the borders which are happy to be neglected. I don't want to be out in the garden pruning and taming. So pleased send suggestions of nice and easy flowers I can plant and leave. Preferably things which come back year after year and cover the ground enough to suppress alot of weed growth. Might be hoping for a miracle

Thanks 😁

How big?
How sunny?
Which way does it face?
Does budget extend to a gardener a couple of times a year to prune?

Got to love an optimist!
#handsoffgardening

Gets the sun most of the day, except for the bottom border
Fairly big garden (not good with measuring guestimates unfortunately)
Would rather not get a gardener in if possible

😁
I'm aware it may not be possible, but I can dream 😂 may have to plant plastic flowers haha

It's that weed growth that is the killer. Worst bit of gardening and there's just no stopping it.
Top tip, just pay someone to come in occasionally and do the weeding.

Perennials like roses, hydrangeas, geums need minimal work. I literally only spend 5 minutes pruning each bush in late winter, early spring - so only once a year. That's it. Fuchsias are also good but mine keep dying!
I like planting a load of annual bedding plants each May - geraniums, osteopermums, snap dragons, begonias. I find these particular plants are resistant to slugs and bloom from May to October. All I do is water them if it's a dry spell and deadhead to encourage new flowers- I don't know if that's too much trouble?

Cosmos are lovely flowers. They won't come back every year but they give a lot of flowers throughout the summer and you can pretty much ignore them.

I'm with you OP!

Thinking about my (small) garden...

Perennial geraniums
Pulmonaria
Aubretia
Montbretia
Campanula

Flowering shrubs such as philadelphus, hydrangea, Spiraea japonica 'Magic Carpet

For starters.

I would go for shrubs for structure, some tallish perennials and some spreading mat like plants to cover the soil and keep away weeds.

Some low maintenance evergreen shrub ideas that don’t get too huge:

Rock rose (needs sun)
Hebe topiaria (prefers sun)
Rosemary (prefers sun)
Pittosporum “tom thumb“ or “golf ball”
Daphne (some lovely scented ones)
Hydrangea (not evergreen but come back each year after one cut back in winter)

Perennial ideas (there are so many)

For sun:
Peonies
Salvias
Verbena
Lavender
Erysimum
Scabious/Knautia

for shade:
Foxgloves (nb poisonous if eaten)
Ferns
Hellebores
Cyclamen

Mat forming

Erigeron
Convulvulus cneorum
Creeping phlox
Lamium (takes over)
Thrift

You could add some climbers though they do tend to be slightly higher maintenance as they need support (avoid the self sucker ones as they go mad) and cutting back.

We have a lot of the plants above and do very very little gardening. Maybe a tidy up a couple of times a year.

Potentilla. Nice flowering shrub that you leave alone and it is slow growing.
Euonymus. Pleasant evergreen, some varieties are variegated, again slow growing.
Rosemary. Lovely flowers for months, and you can eat it!

Stuff that we have found pretty robust/needing low/no maintenance:

• Hebe
• Eunonymus
• Vinca (mayor or minor)
• Catmint & other herbs (e.g. rosemary is surprisingly nice, creeping thyme)
• Viburnum (viburnum tinus is evergreen)
• Escallonia
• Potentilla

And if you have acidic soil - rhododendrons & azaleas

Ceonothus is beautiful with that vivid blue and you can put it in and forget it once established.
Or a pearl bush is beautiful with very wedding like blossom?

Also - for pollinators we love Geum and Buddleia (and they get lovely flowers)

Ohhh just remembered I bought creeping thyme seeds a while ago, I wonder if they're still in date 😂
I do have some rosemary, lavender, rhubarb in the garden that are pretty good for ground coverage at the moment, going to have a look into some of these suggestions because I'm not sure I know what alot of these plants look like

I think I may have chopped down a buddleia, it was taking over the world unfortunately and it was a pain the keep in check, I think it was a buddleia anyway 😂

Also my dad has a rambling rose - "Wedding Day" - which is white flowering and just beautiful, plus you just leave it be and prune it once every few years if you find it getting too big.

Yeah Buddleia can get quite big. Most of the plants on my list are quite small; max 1x1m or so. Apart from Viburnum, Buddleia and that wedding day rose.

Hardy Geranium Rozanne, grows low but a 6' spread.
Beautiful purple flowers from June right through to October, great pollinator the bees and butterflies love it!

Oh yes agree with Rozane!

Watch out for vinca though, will take over your garden