See 12 ways to design and plan your garden to spend less time working on it and more time enjoying it.

1. Create Outdoor Living Areas

Extend your living space and options for entertaining in warm weather with outdoor dining areas, lounges and seating nooks around fire pits. Patios, decks and terraces all cut down on planting space and the size of lawns to maintain. Not only do these gathering spaces tempt you to head outside and enjoy your garden more often, they also generally require less maintenance than garden beds.

2. Lose The Lawn Or Reduce Its Size

Having fewer grassy areas to care for means less time mowing, fertilising, weeding and reseeding. If you’re not interested in getting rid of your lawn entirely, consider decreasing its size.

3. Limit Planting Space

While I’m not advocating wall-to-wall hardscape from a design perspective, there’s no denying that it would cut down on the time spent mowing, mulching and general garden-bed maintenance.

4. Choose Unfussy Plants Well-Suited To Your Climate

Getting the right plant in the right place may take a bit of effort upfront, but it can be a major time and money saver in the long run. Don’t insist on growing citrus in slow-draining soil or rhododendrons in a dry, windswept area. Likewise, if you don’t have the time for pruning, it’s probably best to skip climbing roses, ficus or wisteria, which can easily get out of hand without proper maintenance. Instead, choose plants that naturally grow in your area or similar climate regions and that need little care to thrive.

5. Swap A Flower Border For Shrubs

Seasonal flower beds are maintenance-heavy, requiring a good deal of planting, staking, watering and deadheading for their fleeting display of blooms. While you may not want to get rid of them entirely, consider replacing some of the planting space with easy-care shrubs.

6. Go For A Modern, Minimalist Look

Skip fussy, labour-intensive flower beds and opt for easy-care shrubs paired with sleek hardscape.

7. Let Some Areas Go Wild

Take a step back and let go of maintaining some areas of the garden, allowing nature to take the helm. While it can be difficult to give up order in areas close to the house, spaces such as the property’s back border and shady areas under mature trees can be good options to let go wild. Sit back and observe as fallen leaves form a natural mulch on the ground, native plants take root, and wild birds return to feed.

8. Opt For A Simple Water Feature

As anyone who has mucked out a pond can attest, maintaining large water features can be a lot of work – messy and unpleasant. For the benefits of adding a water element to your landscape without the hassle, choose a simple design that’s easy to clean. For example, consider filling a stone basin with water and watching the birds enjoy a drink, or invest in a simple recirculating fountain for the relaxing sound of water.

9. Choose Perennials For Colour

Ditch the annual bedding plants that fade after a season and turn to hardy perennials for colour year after year. Stalwarts like English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and spurge (Euphorbia characiass ubsp. wulfenii) bloom for months and need only an annual trim to keep from getting too woody. Plus, most perennials offer more for pollinators in terms of pollen and nectar than bedding plants bred for colour.

10. Organise Your Tools

Hunting for the shovel or a missing part for the lawn mower can take up even more time than the garden job itself. Set yourself up to be organised – and stay organised – with a storage system that works for you. This could be a garden shed, designating an area of the garage for garden tools, or just a chosen spot to house equipment on the side of the house under the eaves. The trick is to designate a specific place where each tool can be found and put away easily.

11. Spread Mulch On Beds

Mulch is one of the best garden maintenance timesavers. It suppresses weed growth, cuts down on water loss, and breaks down to help improve soil texture. Plus, spreading a few bags of wood chip or bark mulch over planting beds instantly gives your garden a well-maintained look with minimal effort.

12. Create A Spot To Relax

If the real goal is to spend more time enjoying your garden, don’t forget to make it an inviting place to be. Set up a hammock, pull a pair of chairs under a shade tree, or spread a cheerful outdoor rug down on the patio. Then sit back and relax.

It’s important to make all your ideas known to your builder at the start of the design stage, that way nothing will get missed our become to complicated later on. Also look into the standard inclusions of a builder to your aren’t caught out by extras. At Hurst Homes we pride ourselves on providing no hidden extras, and full turn-key homes for our clients. We always include irrigation conduits under our footpath and driveways along with electrical, even if our clients don’t have landscaping and irrigation included. A good builder should think of everything to make things easier for their clients down the track. Just another reason why we are considered Wagga’s Best Builder. If you’re interested in building in the Wagga area contact us today on 0438 692 962 for a preliminary estimate on your dream home.

For more great articles from Lauren Dunec Hoang, or tips and tricks from other Houzz experts vist Houzz.com.au