Don’t let your gardens become a source of stress, simplify your maintenance.

We love our gardens, and we love gardening, but sometimes it seems like we have a never ending list of chores and we don’t spend enough time enjoying the relaxing oasis we have built. It may be time to get honest with yourself. Do your efforts really suit your lifestyle? Many gardeners happily devote a good deal of time as their hobby time, exercise time, relaxation time and or de-stressing time. But for those of us with lives also filled with work, family and other activities, it can become nothing but a chore. Don’t let that happen! It might be time to Marie Kondo your gardens and landscape.

Take some time to very seriously evaluate your entire landscape. Which plants and features do you truly love? Which plants and features are the biggest time suckers? Which chores do you enjoy and relax you? Which chores do you detest? Make lists so you have a black and white record to evaluate. You might be surprised about what you have on your lists of pros and cons, good and bad, love and hate. It should help reveal to you what changes you should make.

A few thoughts to consider both before and after you evaluate:

• Weeding the gardens can be minimized a number of ways. In your bare soil edible gardens disrupt small weeds easily by quick surface cultivation. In mulched gardens apply thick layers of newspaper, cardboard or perforated/porous weed fabric barrier directly to the soil prior to mulching. Or on bare soil be sure to apply mulch generously, 4 inches.

• Weed after rain so roots pull out easily. Designate small areas to thoroughly clear so it doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

• Unless you just can’t live without your hanging baskets, out they go. Hanging baskets of annuals are time consuming in so many ways. At least whittle the numbers down to one or two well placed spectacular accents.

• Quit lugging your watering can all over. Containers filled with annuals or herbs may have seemed like an easy way to manage gardens, but they can be very time consuming. Like hanging baskets, reduce the number to a few important accents or herbs outside the kitchen door.

• Any containers or hanging baskets you have decided to keep should be as large as possible. Not only can you make a big visual impact with a large container, but they will hold more soil, therefore more water. Then cover the soil with sphagnum moss to help retain moisture.

• You do not have to edge trim your lawn. If you install edging blocks you can just mow the edge with the mower wheels right on the blocks or bricks.

• You do not have to have a neatly trimmed hedge. It is still a hedge if you allow the beautiful natural form of the plant to shine. Spring or fall pruning is enough for most “hedging” plants.

• Fill garden and shade areas with ground covering plants to smother weeds and provide colorful foliage or even some blooms.

• Select the slowest growing landscape plants to minimize pruning and replacing because they over grew their space too quickly.

• Plant one low maintenance flowering shrub instead of several perennials.

• Plant sterile perennials instead of self seeders and spreaders.

• If you have erosion problems or washouts after heavy rains because of slopes, tame the hills with proper planting or create a rock dry bed to manage and divert the water.

• You do not have to have a traditional grass lawn. Clover lawns are gorgeous and close to maintenance free.

• If you love having a grass lawn but it is sparse, shaded, grows poorly with poor soil, get the RIGHT grass seed for the conditions and feed it properly but minimally. Grow it a bit longer so it stays stronger.

• If you hate digging weeds out of your lawn or chemically eradicating them, make sure your lawn is strong and healthy enough to choke out most weeds. Over seed thin lawn areas to keep the lawn dense.

Sometimes the smallest things can make your maintenance so much easier. Start with the obvious. You may be surprised at how freeing it is and continue to make more and more changes. Now go get a lemonade and enjoy it on your garden bench.