Is home maintenance eating up your weekends? Your home needs to be maintained, but you don’t want to spend your life looking after it. Avoiding home maintenance tasks won’t make them go away, but, you can design your home and garden to reduce home maintenance.

1. Add Gutter Covers and Gutter Heat 

Are you tired of having to remove your garden leaves from your gutter? If so, adding a gutter cover will eliminate the need to remove leaves:  they will just fall from the gutter to the ground. Add gutter heat so that ice doesn’t clog your gutters in the winter, and you have virtually maintenance-free gutters.

2. Structure Your Garden

If you’re tired of bending and weeding, create taller garden beds or terraces that are easy to access. Add fewer plants that are more striking, rather than adding many different plants that you need to maintain. 

3. Go Perennial 

Annual plants are pretty, but perennials are more practical. Choose some lovely perennials such as lavender and mahonia to grace your gardens and feed the bees.

4. Use Your Leaves 

If you’re tired of raking and bagging leaves, use the leaves instead of discarding them. Place them onto garden beds, where they will turn into soil over the winter. Adding bark mulch or leaves can also reduce the growth of weeds.

5. Reduce Your Leaves 

If you have a lot of perennials that lose their leaves in the fall, gradually replace them with other plants that do not do this. Then you will have fewer leaves to clean up. For example, box, fatsia, and camellia are all beautiful and evergreen. According to Thompson and Morgan, some evergreens “have beautiful flower displays or are highly scented in winter when little else is growing, and some have variegated or colorful foliage which is a perfect foil for summer perennials and a feature in itself during the winter.”

6. Make a Natural Pond 

Are you tired of having wet places in your lawn? You could fight them, or you could decide to run with that water. Create a natural pond or wetland planting in areas that are very wet.

7. Choose Pathways That Last 

Is your pathway cracked? Is your gravel running away? If you want to stop maintaining your pathways but you’re worried that people will fall, make sure that your pathway will last. Choose tough, easily-replaceable paving stones and add a gravel base underneath to promote excellent drainage and reduce cracking.

8. Add a Slow-Growing Border 

If you like the look of a well-edged garden bed but you’re tired of struggling with pruning or edging the beds, choose a slow-growing plant that will rarely need trimming. For example, a thyme border will not need to be edged for many years to come, and it looks attractive as it gradually moves onto the path.

9. Choose Slow-Growing Plants 

You love your laurels, but boy do they grow. If you’re getting tired of pruning, choose hedging plants that are slower-growing instead, such as yew trees.

10. Add a Fence 

If you want to maintain a border around your property, remember that plants will need trimming. Consider adding hardscaping elements such as a wall or a fence instead. Depending on how often you want to maintain your fence and what materials you enjoy, choose materials such as metal or wood.

At Harry Helmet, we’re here to make your gardening and home life easier. Contact us today to learn more about Gutter Helmet and schedule a free estimate.

 
Written by Del Thebaud