Thursday, November 15, 2007

Ground cover - Doing it right for easy maintenance

By simplifying the shape of your lawn, removing obstacles and adding easy-care features, you can cut mowing time. A radical solution is to choose a non-grass surface that requires little maintenance.

The traditional ideal of a lawn is a manicured, close-cropped expanse of grass that covers the 'floor' of the garden. Its big drawback, from the busy gardener's point of view, is the time that such a lawn takes to maintain. Even in a small garden it is easy to spend an hour or more each week from spring to autumn cutting grass, emptying the grass box, disposing of clippings and trimming lawn edges. And even in winter the jobs will still need doing occasionally.

By simplifying your garden's design and using the right lawn products and equipment it is possible to reduce the workload and increase the enjoyment you get from keeping a lawn. But there are exciting alternatives to traditionally cropped grass. A different ground covering can mean far less work and still look good, particularly in places where grass grows poorly, such as in shade or in dry, sunny sites. For areas that suffer heavy wear, gravel or paving would be better options, while in parts of the garden that are rarely walked on you could lay a decorative flowering feature which will not need cutting.

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