Cut garden upkeep with low-maintenance ideas

Use this guide if the garden takes more time than you have, or you want it easier as you get older or busier. Have a notebook and think back over the jobs that took most of your time this year.

Step by step

1. List the jobs that eat your time

   Write down every regular job from this year, such as mowing, edging, weeding, watering pots, hedge cutting and leaf clearing, with a rough guess of hours spent. Circle the three that took longest or that you most dislike. Note any part of the garden that always looks untidy despite your effort. Your low-maintenance plan targets those three jobs first, not the whole garden.