One thing many people take great pride in is a well-manicured yard. Such a beautiful landscape can make your yard the pride of the neighborhood. It could even increase the price of your home. Unfortunately, landscaping is not easy. Getting your yard into that shape usually requires hours upon hours of manual labor. Thankfully, there are shortcuts you can take advantage of. Below are five alternatives for creating low-maintenance landscaping.

Use Mulch Liberally
If you want to have a low-maintenance landscape, you need to do everything you can to remove the possibility of weeds growing. If you don’t, you could end up spending hours upon hours every month pulling weeds. Even using a mechanical weed wacker can be a humongous pain. This is especially the case when it comes to managing the monofilament line which often seems almost impossible to reload properly after it gets loose or is chopped off during use. On the other hand, one thing you typically only have to do once to stop weeds from growing up out of the ground is putting down two to three inches of mulch. Mulch made from bark or wood chippings can be bought by the bag for rather cheap. Use it wherever you can to stop weeds from growing.

Install Synthetic Grass
One of the biggest parts of maintaining a landscape is mowing the lawn. In most places, a lawn has to be mowed once a week. If you work a full-time job, you may wish you had that extra time you spend mowing the grass to spend with your family or at least on something more recreational. One solution is to get rid of the grass entirely. Thankfully, you can do so and still maintain a green landscape instead of a yard that looks like the barren face of Mars. You can do so by installing synthetic grass on your lawn. Sometimes referred to as “astroturf,” synthetic grass was developed for commercial use for things such as sports fields. However, artificial grass for playgrounds and stadiums can now be bought for home use as well. This is a great option if you have children who play in the yard and will wear out real grass. Today, it’s more realistic looking than ever before and can present a no-maintenance solution for those that want the appearance of grass in their yard without having to use a lawnmower.

Add Some Hardscaping
If you want to lower the amount of maintenance for your landscape, you need to eliminate areas where grass, weeds, etc. can grow. You can do that by “hardscaping.” This is the strategy of decorating your landscaping with rocks and other things with hard surfaces. You can, for example, make a larger patio area with stone, brick, or pavers. You can create walkways to and from your home with the same materials. The more you use, the less vegetation you will have to manage.

Plant Evergreens, Pines, and Fir Trees
One of the biggest nuisances caused by having trees in your yard is when they lose their leaves in the fall. You could spend days upon days raking up leaves. Even worse, many of those leaves may end up in your gutters. Cleaning your gutters is a nasty job no one wants to do, but you have to especially if you have trees nearby. However, what if you could have trees without the nuisance of dead leaves? The solution of course is to plant evergreens, pines, and fir trees instead. There are many different varieties in different shapes and colors that can add plenty of differentiation to your yard. Some shed their needles, but those needles can simply act as free mulch under your trees. They will not end up all over your yard or in your gutters as leaves do.

Plant Perennial Flowers
You don’t have to forego flowers if you want a low-maintenance landscape. Flowers, of course, add splashes of color and beauty to any yard they are planted in. Certain varieties of flowers can be a lot of work. If you want a low-maintenance yard, avoid annual flowers. These flowers only last one season and must be continually replanted. Instead, go for perennials which will last for many seasons without any maintenance at all. Some perennials can live for as long as multiple decades. If you live in a drier climate, you can even choose drought-resistant perennials like the pasque flower. You won’t even need to water them.

Maintaining a pristine yard can require hours upon hours of hard labor. However, with a bit of strategy, you can create attractive landscaping without the need to spend so much time maintaining it. Solutions such as laying down mulch, laying stone, planting pine trees, and planting perennial flowers can create the gorgeous yard you want without the need to continually complete yard work.

5 Options for Low-Maintenance Landscaping by Tracie Johnson