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I have always loved beautiful landscaping. The problem is hiring someone to do it for you can get very expensive.
In our backyard, we had space in between the fence and the concrete that we wanted to design.
One crucial aspect for us was to have something very low maintenance.
This was important because we don’t have too much time to trim any type of plant and clean up a lot of debris.
Prepping The Job Site
To start, we made sure that we pressed down the dirt with a handheld tamper.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Razor-Back-10-in-x-10-in-Steel-Tamper-30005/100158211
This was done so that we could slightly slope it so water would not stay in one spot.
It’s also essential to press down on the soil to ensure that the soil is compacted.
After doing this step, you should spray the entire space with a weed killer to try and kill as much of the weed as possible.
Let’s be honest weed growing in between plants is a pain in the butt. I mean who wants to spend their weekends picking out weeds from their plants and in between rocks.
I know I don’t!! So to try to have the least amount of weed growth, we have to spray the location with weed killer.
You can find this at Home Depot. The best one that I have felt has the best results is the Roundup Weed and Grass Killer III. I will place a link to it below.
The next step to prevent weed growth is to place weed barrier fabric all over the location that you need landscaping.
One of my best recommendations for weed barrier fabric is not to buy the cheap one.
This is one of the most crucial aspects to avoid future weed snatching.
I say this because every time it has occurred, purchasing the lower end weed barrier ends up just being a waste of money.
This is because it doesn’t prevent much of the weed from growing at all.
Many people who have used the lower end weed barrier end up redoing the entire job.
Since we don’t want that, make sure to purchase an excellent quality weed barrier. I will place a link to my recommended one.
After placing the weed barrier, the next step is to run all the electrical wires and hoses for the automatic water system, and the electric wires are for the lights.
If you have expertise in doing this, you can easily do it. If not, you can either place individual solar lights and water the plants by hand or hire someone to do this portion.
Lucky for me, my brother knew a lot about this and was able to do this portion.
I will place a link to the lights we used below and solar lights if you don’t choose to run electric wires.
To have very low maintenance, landscaping plants are very crucial. You don’t want plants that end up with a lot of debris and require lots of cleanup and trimming.
I started by drawing up what I wanted the shape of it to look like with an inverse spray can marking everything on the black paper. I will place a link to that below!!
I used many different types of plants. You can always improvise with some of your favorite plants.
The primary plants that I used in the middle of the main squares were Sago Palms, Monterey Cypress, and Oriental Arborvitae.
Sago palms are very low maintenance, and the Monterey Cypress ad Oriental Arborivate has some needed trimming, but it is not much.
I like to poke fun and call it California meets Michigan!!
Michigan has lots of perennials, and Monterey Cypress and Oriental arborvitae and California are known for palm trees.
Anyways, these make to be great primary plants because they both can take full sunlight.
For the plants on the side, I used succulents. I use succulents because they don’t need much water and are used to a lot of sunlight.
This is great because the location I am placing them has full sunlight, so I know all of these plants will thrive.
I planted the Monetary Cypress, Sago Palm, Oriental Arborvitae, Tree Aeonium, New Zealand Flax, Neon Breaker, Paddle Plant, Foxtail fern, Molded Wax Agave, Zebra Plant, Black Prince, Hawworths Aeonium, Saucer Plant, Jade Plant, Copper Spoons, Cobweb Hens and Chicks.
Rocks and Blocks
To make the squares and the lines separating the different rock I placed, I used Home Depot Pave stone rubble stone mini pavers.
I secured them to each other using the Loctite Landscaping adhesive. This was to ensure that after placing the small rocks, the pavers would not move around.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Loctite-PL-500-10-fl-oz-Landscape-Block-Adhesive-1683231/203266767
On the one side of the pavers in the back and front, we placed sunset gold 3/4 inch rocks.
Inside the squares where the sago palms and the cypresses are, we placed white 3/4 inch rocks.
In between the squares, we had a leftover rectangle shape that we decided to place fake grass.
This is to keep up with the whole low maintenance theme.
The rocks and fake grass you can purchase at many different local landscaping stores.
Lighting
For the lighting, you can place the electrical light or solar lights. I have put a link below to some great ones.
Overall the look is beautiful, and hopefully, this helps you with your future landscaping.
By: Silvana J.
