How to Cultivate a Beautiful Garden... Lazily.
The slightly wild summer garden
Autumn is just around the corner, the humidity is high, the ground is parched and if your garden is starting to look a little crisp, overgrown, wild and unkept - I hear ya!
Trust me: you are not the only one.
The truth is, gardening in Australia in the summer time is HARD. It’s hard to keep plants reigned in when they’re giddy from sunlight and want to stretch their limbs far and wide. It’s hard to keep coastal soil from turning to desert sand in the heat, and if you have clay-based soil it’s a mission to stop it becoming rock hard.
Meanwhile, plants are simultaneously wilting and fruiting left, right and centre, seeds need sowing, seedlings need tending and somehow you’re supposed to stay on top of all of this while maintaining a career, family, a social life and something resembling peace of mind?
Something’s gotta give. And the truth is, often the garden is the first thing to go.
I understand. If it’s a choice between spending time with your partner or keeping your tomatoes well watered and neatly pruned, obviously the tomatoes come second. If it’s a choice between getting that last email sent out on time or mowing the lawn, it’s only rational to stay a little longer at the office.
Every life has seasons that are busy, crammed, hectic and where we need to drop some things to keep our heads above water. And when it’s 38 degrees only the maddest of us head outside to water the lettuce (and in case you think I’m out there watering my lettuces on days like that - I’m not).
At times like these, what we need is a new way to approach our gardens. Because ultimately gardening and plants should help with stress, not cause it. We need to grow gardens that are resilient enough to allow us to drop the ball every now and then. And we need a style of gardening that fits with real life - not with the aspirational photos that give us garden envy on instagram.
We need to embrace the virtues of lazy gardening, to grow gardens that are peaceful refuges and not sources of stress. Gardens that are a little wild, a little messy, sometimes overgrown, always tough, natural and - most importantly - stress free.
Here’s how to be a lazy gardener with a beautiful, thriving garden.
Do you see lush greenery and flowering agapanthus or a brown lawn? Perfect gardens are near-impossible.
1. Don’t be a perfectionist
I’m not much of a perfectionist. I don’t really like planning and I have minimal patience for the finer details of things. At certain times, these are unhelpful personality traits. But in the garden, I think they work to my advantage, because I don’t get too caught up in the idea of some idealised final outcome for all my efforts – mostly I just love to garden for the sake of it.
The natural world is a constantly growing, changing and evolving entity. So, if you approach gardening with the idea that a permanently perfect garden is possible you’re likely setting yourself up for disappointment (or eternal struggle).
Our gardens will always need work. There will always be a natural ebb and flow between beauty and mess because our plants will never stop growing. But this is part of the wonderful thing about gardens; they’re never finished. And what if you actually could create a perfect, finished garden that never needed you anymore! I couldn’t imagine anything sadder!
In reality (and away from the aspirational world of gardening magazines, Pinterest and instagram) sometimes our gardens are messy; sometimes they are in full bloom. If you’re not too caught up in having everything perfect you’re more likely to enjoy just tinkering – pruning a rose here and there, deadheading a daisy, repotting a seedling. Gardening then becomes a little everyday ritual - a few minutes of peaceful pottering each day - rather than a job.
2. Plant for your area
You will make gardening much easier, lazier and more fun if you grow plants that want to live in your area.
If you live in the desert, don’t plant a hydrangea. If you live in the foggy highlands, don’t bother with a cactus.
And as a general rule, if you live on the coast in Western Australia – unless you’re feeling very optimistic – don’t plant Azaleas (I’ve killed so many I’ve lost count). In a nutshell, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by trying to grow things that have little-to-no chance of surviving in your climate and soil.
Case in point: my Mum lives two minutes from the beach, but she dreams of a verdant, flowering garden like the ones she saw on a trip to Chicago. You know what I say to her? I say QUIT DREAMING WOMAN YOU’RE LIVING IN AN ARID, SALTY FANTASY! (she also reads my blog - hi Mum!).
The thing is, awesome plants grow everywhere. You just need to focus on the ones that have evolved for the climate you live in. A great way to start is by searching for native plants that grow in your region. This should give you an idea of what kinds of things will do ok. You can also search for native plants that grow in other countries with similar environments. For instance, many plants that do well in Italy, Morocco, South Africa and California also do well in Western Australia as all those regions have hot, dry summers and reasonably mild winters.
Similarly, when I buy a new plant, I find it useful to imagine (or research) where the plant originates from. This helps me guess what it’s going to need in order to thrive.
For example, blueberries (which grow wild in the forests of North America) have evolved to thrive in the dappled shade of the forest understory and to enjoy the acid soils in these environments. Which makes them rather more challenging to grow in the sunny, alkaline garden beds of our Perth gardens. Instead of trying to force the blueberries to grow in conditions that they just aren't suited to, I stick them in a pot filled with slightly acidic soil, feed them with pine bark mulch and stick them under the dappled shade of our mulberry tree - mimicking (as best I can) the environment they’ve evolved to love.
Mimicking your plants’ native environments or buying plants that are well adapted to your garden environment is the easiest way to ensure minimal effort on your part, and maximum reward from your photosynthesising amigos.
If you love a particular plant, by all means, give it a go. If it’s fussy and dies, maybe buy one more and give it another chance. If that one dies too?? Pack it in. Life’s too short to spend on a bunch of hard-to-please Azaleas.
Sweet peas climbing up a frame made from pruned mulberry tree branches (much better than azaleas!)
3. Let your plants do the work
You’re the gardener. So, basically, in your little ecosystem – you’re god. The creator and destroyer of worlds!
Don’t let it go to your head.
The best way to be a lazy creator and destroyer of worlds is to step back and let the plants do their thing. Often, people will head to a garden centre to buy annuals (plants that grow from seed, then flower and fruit, produce their own seeds and die within a year). They’ll let them grow, flower, and fruit, but then before the plants get a chance to sow their own seeds for the following year, they’ll be ripped out and chucked away.
Then, the very same people go back to the same garden centre to buy a whole new packet of the same seeds and begin the same exact process again.
Cut out the middle man! You don’t need to buy new annuals every year if you just leave your plants to do the work themselves. Let your annuals hang around long enough to dry up and go to seed, then collect the seeds for the following year or just scatter the dried seedpods around your garden and cross your fingers that some will germinate.
Admittedly, plants don’t look their prettiest when they’re drying up and making little brown seedpods, but if you’ve ever been wandering around your garden only to find a little self-sown head of lettuce in some random corner, you’ll know how wonderfully fulfilling it is to let plants reproduce on their own. I also have a theory that veggies taste better when the plants have grown from self-sown seeds.
A few annuals that grow brilliantly from seed year after year include: basil, borage, calendula, chillies, fennel, tomatoes, lettuce, marigolds, nasturtiums, rocket, pumpkins, sweet peas and poppies.
4. Plant perennials
Now you know how to deal with annuals (i.e., do nothing and let them self-seed!), my next piece of advice is: don’t only plant annuals.
Annuals are great, but a garden filled exclusively with annuals is a lot of work. If you only grow annuals, every season your plants will die and you’ll basically need to create a whole new garden afresh.
Instead, grow a combination of annuals and perennials. Perennials last more than two years (note: there’s a third category of plant called biennials, which flower only once, but last for two years, some examples include Parsley, Leeks and Hollyhocks).
Some perennials stay leafy all year round (evergreen perennials in Perth include pelargoniums, echium, oyster plants, tractor seat plants and lemon grass. Others will grow lush and leafy each summer then die back and go dormant in winter, only to return the following spring (for example, blackberries, many flowering bulbs, artichokes and rhubarb).
Perennials are great for the lazy gardener, because once they’re established they require less upkeep than annuals. While annuals need to be sown, watered, tended to, harvested and ultimately pulled out and re-sown each year, perennials just hang out in the garden year after year, doing their thing. They basically take care of themselves. What’s more, because they hang around longer, perennials tend to have larger and deeper root systems, meaning they require less water than annuals in order to survive.
Some of my favourite edible perennials in my garden include: blueberries, rhubarb, artichokes, lemon verbena, mint, sweet potato and asparagus. Some of my favourite flowering perennials include pelargoniums, alstroemeria, dusty miller, ribbon bush, ornamental grasses, gladioli and roses.
As a side note, if you have room, I highly recommend planting a few hardy trees to add a little shade to your garden. My garden has become increasingly easy to maintain as the trees I’ve planted grow bigger. If your garden is in full sun all the time, the sun can strip the soil of good bacteria, turning it rapidly to dry sand.
Providing dappled shade to some parts of your garden(while leaving other sections in full sun) means you can grow a wider variety of plants, and protect the good microbes in your soil from the sun’s harsh rays. If you live in Western Australia, try planting citrus trees, olive trees, bananas, mangoes, apples, pears, curry leaf trees, bay trees or a dwarf mulberry (all very hardy and productive!).
5. Reward the plants that thrive
Some plants are uphill battles.
Like I said, I’ve tried and failed to grow Azaleas many times. It was a frustrating but useful lesson. As the last Azalea’s leaves dried up and it turned to a sorry little stick, I vowed never to try and force any more plants to grow if they clearly didn’t want to cooperate.
Now each species I plant gets one, maaaaaaybe two chances, and if they can’t suck it up and survive in the conditions I provide, they’re OUT.
Instead of persisting with plants that just don’t really want to live, I recommend rewarding the plants that thrive. These are the ones that I find are often easiest to propagate too. And the best part is that you don’t have to be especially careful with them.
I rip branches off my favourite pelargoniums and shove them back into the soil to take root somewhere new. I tear my calendula out of the ground and shake it roughly over garden beds to deposit new seeds. I come across clumps of tomato seedlings that have grown out of a tomato I threw in the compost and I split them up and plant them in any bit of spare space in the garden.
Because these plants WANT to grow, I have far fewer casualties and much less disappointment. It also makes it easier to have a beautiful garden that is overflowing and green because so many plants are always ready and waiting to have their seeds sprinkled, or branches snapped off and shoved, into a spare patch of earth.
If a plant thrives, I keep it. This makes the garden much easier to maintain (and much more satisfying and enjoyable too!)
6. Redefine ‘overgrown’
If you find yourself feeling stressed and guilty for having a ‘neglected’ or ‘overgrown’ garden, you might simply need to tweak your definitions a little. The truth is, wild and overgrown gardens are no reason to feel guilty! In fact, of all the gardens out there, wilder gardens are much more hospitable to wildlife.
Wild or overgrown gardens tend to be more densely planted. Grasses rub shoulders with shrubs, vines ramble up into trees and plants slowly spread out to fill the space. This results in a wide range of hospitable and safe environments for pollinators, bugs, native birds, lizards, frogs and other wildlife.
It might surprise you to learn that one of the best things you can do to encourage beneficial insects to your garden is to simply stop mowing your lawn. Longer lawn provides hiding spots for many little bugs, and these bugs in turn provide a valuable food source for the birds, reptiles and amphibians that visit your patch.
So, next time you feel guilt about having a garden that is ‘overgrown’ or ‘neglected’ just change your definitions. You are growing a naturalistic and beautiful permaculture garden - a home for wildlife and a biodiversity hot spot! It’s all about the wording ;-).
7. Embrace guilt free gardening
Now we’ve eradicated your guilt about garden neglect, let’s address the guilt you feel when you kill one of your plants. I’ve said this once (that’s a lie I say it all the time) and I’ll say it again: all gardeners kill plants. Even the good gardeners. Even the gardeners who have beautiful, perfectly manicured backyards and always sound like they know what they’re talking about.
Sometimes plants just die.
They might have transplant shock from being shifted out of their pot. They might have been raised in artificially perfect hot-house conditions and so were ill-prepared to be planted out in a real-life garden. They might have some weird disease that they picked up before even reaching your garden. They might have gone without water on a hot day and given up. There are so many reasons that a plant might suddenly die and nine times out of ten the real reason will remain a mystery.
The trick is knowing that - ultimately - it doesn’t matter. Develop a slightly callous attitude. You can love your garden, you can adore your plants, but when one dies the best course of action is to shrug it off and plant something new in its place. You can’t make an omelette without cracking some eggs and you can’t grow a garden without killing some plants. Don’t stress, just keep planting.
Our raised vegetable garden bed - a very effective form of hard landscaping to help contain the wild veggie growth!
8. Use hard landscaping
You can get away with a messier and more overgrown garden by adding hard landscaping features (i.e., paths, edging, walls and other non-organic structures) that will look good no matter how overgrown the garden is. Our garden often turns wild by mid-summer, but our hard landscaping (limestone edges around garden beds, a paved seating area, archways and walls) provide enough structure that we can get away with a little more wilderness in the garden beds themselves.
Trees and larger perennial plants help in much the same way. Even if the rest of your garden descends into chaos, these plants provide permanent structure that is less likely to grow totally out of control in the blink of an eye.
9. Quick tips to fix a neglected garden
Finally, here are a few of my favourite lazy(ish) tips to tidy up a messy garden for those who don’t know where to start.
First, befriend lupin mulch. Lupin mulch is my go-to mulch for adding all over our garden beds. Although it’s not really a lazy job spreading lupin mulch over the entire garden, it will instantly make your garden look neater and tidier. What’s more, it’s a fantastic way to start improving your soil - lupin mulch adds heaps of organic matter into your soil as it breaks down, making it infinitely better than wood chip mulch (which is pretty much my least favourite mulch).
Next, add a couple of large features to attract the eye. Sometimes all a messy garden needs is a little structure. Get an old wheelbarrow, drill a few holes in the bottom and fill it with good soil and flowers. Or try a large urn, a big tree, a few large ‘statement’ rocks, a table and chairs or a pot full of flowers. A few bigger, more dramatic elements in a garden can often draw the eye away from the messier parts, giving your garden a sense of order and intentionality.
Last, just create one small, tidy area. Think of this like a meadow in the centre of your wild garden. An oasis surrounded by natural wilderness. This might mean mowing a patch of lawn in the centre of your yard (while letting the rest grow wild), or stringing up some fairy lights in one of your trees and popping two chairs underneath (and maybe a pot of flowers!).
The truth is, you don’t really need your entire garden to be perfect or neat - if you just make one area look intentionally neat and beautiful the messiness that surrounds it can actually provide a nice contrast; your island of beauty will be enhanced by the wilderness that surrounds it.
Parting thoughts for my lazy gardening friends
If you take one thing away from today’s post, I hope it is this: the important thing isn’t really how your garden looks. It’s not how perfect your vegetables are, how many caterpillars are eating your broccoli or how many flowers are blooming in your beds.
The only thing that matters is how much you are enjoying being in your garden. How the time you spend out there enhances your life, gives you cause to move your body, connects you to the natural world and draws you into moments of quiet contemplation, bursts of creative energy and moments of mindfulness.
Our gardens are for relieving our stress, not adding to it.
As long as your garden is bringing you joy, you are doing it right.