A gravel xeriscape garden of agaves, feather grasses and lavender in front of a modern Mallorcan house

Low Maintenance Garden

Low maintenance is a design decision taken early, not a service bought later. The gardens that genuinely need little attention were laid out that way from the beginning.

One

request describes the job

Several

companies see it

Free

for you, always

No

obligation to accept

A planted courtyard beside a Mallorcan stone house, with terracotta pots, citrus trees and a water basin

What reduces work, and what only appears to

Fewer plant types, planted at their mature spacing, in ground prepared properly and covered with a deep mulch. That is most of it. The saving comes from removing the jobs rather than from doing them faster.

What does not work is the obvious shortcut. Gravel over weed fabric fails within a few years as dust builds on top and seeds germinate in it. Artificial grass still needs sweeping and gets hot. Clipped topiary is beautiful and is the single most labour intensive thing in any garden.

The other real saving is automation. An irrigation controller that runs the right programme in every season removes the job that otherwise has to happen weekly, and it is the difference between a garden that survives a long absence and one that does not.

Typical ingredients

  • A short plant list repeated across the garden
  • Planting spaced for its mature size
  • Deep gravel mulch over prepared ground
  • No lawn, or one small defined area
  • Hedges kept as loose screens rather than clipped blocks
  • Automatic irrigation with seasonal programmes
  • Hard edges so nothing needs strimming
  • Trees chosen for how little they drop

How this gets built

Drought tolerant gardens

The lowest upkeep planting for this climate.

Garden maintenance

What is still needed, and how often.

Lawn alternatives

The single biggest saving in most gardens here.

Is there such a thing as no maintenance?

No. Every garden here needs a cut back and an irrigation check at minimum, and a garden left entirely alone becomes scrub within a few seasons.

Does gravel stop weeds?

It suppresses them if it is deep enough. Laid thin, or over fabric that later collects dust, it becomes a seedbed.

Like this? Get it priced

Say how much time you want to spend on the garden and companies can design to it.

Mallorca Landscapers