The Less is More Garden Refit

The less is more garden refit – fix up your garden with next to no effort or expense the easy way. This guide will show you the easy way to have the garden of your dreams with now effort whatsoever. If you are too busy to get your garden into shape, or you don’t know where to start, here are some easy things that you can do today to see some progress in the yard, and before you know it you can have the garden of your dreams and the time to chill out in it.

1. Mow the lawn

Don’t put it off – get the grass cut. It’s a dead simple way to raise the tone of your garden and it’s good exercise too. Just get the mower out and take the top off the grass, no need to go crazy, then leave it. Set yourself a day every week where you have half an hour to mow the lawn. Doing it in the week will leave your weekend free for more fun activities and make your home less of a chore. Stick to the routine and you will have a lawn like a crown green bowling pitch before the summer is out.

Never cut your grass when it is wet, you’ll churn it all up and it will never look right again. Plus its harder for your mower to collect all the cuttings when it’s wet and you end up with funny looking smelly clumps all over the lawn.Wait until it is cool and dry – early evening is best. Cutting in the heat of the day will cause the ends of the cut grass to go all dry and make the lawn look scorched.

If your lawn is overgrown, just take a little off at a time and give the grass time to breathe and dry out before you cut it again. Taking a number of weeks to just take a little off the top and leaving it will train your grass to have smaller neater blades. Really long grass is hard to salvage – you end up with clumps of thick stems and bare patches of earth in between them. Keep going and after a few months the grass will start to fill in the gaps with young, fresh stems and eventually it will all be a uniform length and thickness.

You might find it easier to hire a professional lawn mowing service like [this company] 

2. Grow a hedge

Instead of erecting fences as your boundaries, plant hedges instead. They are easier and cheaper than fences, literally spend an hour planting them and then go do something else for a year or two and that’s it. You’ll have to trim the hedge to keep it neat and to train it to grow the way you want it to, but thats a twice a year job and nothing to worry about.

There are many advantages to having hedges instead of fences:

• Hedges look better

• Fences are too manufactured and sharp edged

• Hedges deter intruders – they are harder to get over

• Hedges keep kids and pets in your yard better.

• A lush green hedge will lift your mood

• Hedges attract wildlife that is good for your garden

If security is an issue, plant thorny hedges like Hawthorn. They look green all year round and no burglar will try and get through a prickly hedgerow.

The wildlife aspect is great too – birds bees and butterflies will flock to your garden and fill it with activity, colour and sound.

3. Eradicate Weeds

Eradicate weeds by pulling them up wherever they grow. Dig out the roots to stop them coming back. Try to avoid using noxious chemical weed killers that are bad for the environment and wildlife. Aim to pull a few up every time you have a spare minute – note, checking your phone for the umpteenth time does not actually count as busy. So get out a do something practical for a minute instead, you’ll enjoy you time in side even more and you will benefit from the change in activity and scenery. Treat going out and pulling a weed as a reboot for your brain. 

As ever, don’t try and weed the whole garden in one day, you will fail and never want to do it again. The little and often habit is much easier and far more beneficial. Incidentally, you will notice that weeding and mowing the grass go hand in hand. The more you cut the grass, the less dandelions you have growing to spread their seeds all over everywhere. Once you get on top of the weed you’ll notice that it gets easier and they will not grow back as fast. Of course, you can never get rid of weeds completely so make sure you are always spending those little minutes pulling weeds to keep on top of the job.

4. Add some non garden ornaments

Add some features that you wouldn’t normally expect to see in a garden but somehow fit perfectly. Old style street lights and post boxes make excellent garden features and are cheaply available from online or local garden stores. Use your imagination and maybe look for something that reflects your personality or interests. Don’t buy a garden centre ornament or fit a pond – they just look contrived and dull. Find an old statue, train station relic, even a grave stone! Something that stand out and is different will set your garden apart from the Joneses next door.

When you have installed your non garden garden feature, add some flowers and ornamental rocks around the base of it so it’s looks like and intentional addition to your garden, not just something that the previous owners dumped there and you couldn’t be bothered to shift. You’ll enjoy this bit of gardening and your friends will think you have impeccable taste, unless of course you did install a gravestone.

5. Let your garden grow

Plant some flowers, herbs and rockery plants close to your garden paths and driveways and let them grow like crazy. Allow them to overhang the pathways so you have to brush past them every time you walk down the path. If you choose strongly scented plants like hyacinth and lavender you will release a wonderful set of aromas every time you walk down the path to the car, instantly lifting your mood, even if if is a wet Monday morning and you are off to work.

There you have it – the less is more garden refit that will reboot your garden without taking up all your time or cash. Another garden hack is to get your kids involved – children love messy fun and will be so proud of all the plants they have grown. When you invest a little time in your garden, the benefits are huge and you will feel great about yourself. So get out there and spend a minute in the garden doing something, you never know, you might enjoy it.