Northwest Lifestyles

Why Your Backyard Needs More Plants

If you have a beautiful home, and you want to change and enhance the landscaping, low maintenance backyard plants are a great way to do so. But, you really don’t feel like needing anything that needs extra that needs to be taken care of. Why does your backyard need more plants?

Improve Your Aesthetic

If you want your yard to look beautiful and to be prepared for a glorious spring, adding in low maintenance but beautiful plants can do both. Your home might need something which is the easiest to  delineate and make room for garden beds. Try carving out space for daylilies, irises, ginger, and other corms, which will not only grow and blossom, but which have lovely greenery when not in blossom. Unlike bulbs, they are often willing to spread happily to larger spaces.

Repel Pests

Plants like basil, mint and lavender have strong smells that repel mosquitoes. Citronella plants and lemongrass do, also. If you decide to plant lavender or rosemary, both can grow happily into large plants, so give them space in the beds. Mint, though, will try to take over your yard from year to year, so plant it within a pot, and then bury the pot if you prefer. Less bugs in your yard, or beneficial insects like butterflies, is a great thing! Don’t forget to plant milkweed for the butterflies!

Enjoying Beauty

Don’t forget plants used in vintage homes to add both beauty and flowers to the atmosphere. Flowering bushes like lilacs and hydrangeas can create a warm and beautiful atmosphere. Roses can flourish with little care in most areas, and only need trimming before winter. If your areas will serve them, plants like azaleas and rhododendrons are wonderful for both filling spaces, creating a privacy wall between properties, creating rich flushes of blooms.

For your beautiful home, look towards low maintenance plants which are native to your specific area. This can be difficult with a HOA, but otherwise, allow yourself to look through heirloom catalogs for gardening plants. Choose things which cause you joy, and which are familiar to your good memories! Whether that is by smell, or taste, or by sight, your delight in a plant will help your garden journey. You don’t need to have a great expense. Often, corms are available at the end of season when local gardeners thin their beds. Ask nicely, and then enjoy yourself as you plant away!

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