I have been an enthusiastic gardener for some time, but I never considered myself an expert. My heart hasn’t been in it the past year because of family troubles, and we have had drought conditions for the fourth or fifth summer in a row. Now I can look around the garden at what has thrived and what has not and claim some expertise on what counts as low-care plants. I have also done my homework and looked up my suggestions to make sure that these plants survived drought and neglect by nature and not just dumb luck. Since I live in North Carolina, I can only be confident that my suggestions will work for someone living in the same zone and dealing with clay soil. At the same time, having lived in northern Illinois when I first started gardening, I know that some, at least are still useful a couple of zones away.
Shrubbery
Shrubbery is great. It comes in various heights, and putting short shrubs in front of tall shrubs looks good. It is not strictly necessary to plant flowers among the shrubs, although it’s possible if the shrubs aren’t too dense. Some shrubs have to be cut back every year, and I will not count them as low-care. Others are subject to various diseases. I have never done anything with the following except water them and pull weeds.
There are hundreds of varieties of holly, some of which grow to tree size and others of which are useful as hedges and need to be trimmed twice a year, but some can be planted and left alone. The various Japanese hollies are fairly drought-tolerant and require little maintenance once they are established. There are dwarf sizes (Helleri, Red Lion, Tiny Tim) and slightly larger ones (Compacta, Convexa); Compacta holly can get up to six feet tall, and Convexa up to nine, but they are slow growing. There are other small and dwarf hollies than Japanese hollies: Carissa, for example, is a slow-growing holly that can reach eight feet. If they need to be cut down to size, it won’t have to be done every year.
The euonymus family comprises nearly 200 species that include vines, deciduous shrubs, and evergreen shrubs. Among the deciduous shrubs are the spectacular Burning Bush. Large ones are a pain to take care of, but mine are a dwarf variety that, after six or seven years, have grown to barely six feet. I’ll have to trim them sometime, but not every year; and I probably won’t have to climb up and down a ladder to do it. Among the evergreens is the Golden Euonymus. It grows slowly and doesn’t get very tall
Indian Hawthorn is an evergreen shrub with lovely flowers in the spring. It is drought-tolerant and available in several sizes. Mine have never gotten more than knee high. Planted close together, they make a nice hedge, and I have a tall crape myrtle and pampas grass between them and a fence. They probably also make good specimen plants for more widely separated placement.
Nandina (sometimes called “heavenly bamboo,” even though it is not bamboo) is another low-growing evergreen shrub. It can be invasive as far south as Florida, but causes no problems in North Carolina. It is available in a variety of sizes. Mine are less than a foot tall. Their slightly reddish leaves give nice color contrast to the surrounding shrubs, especially in the winter.
Ornamental grasses
There are more varieties of miscanthus than there is any point to list here. They range from four to eight feet tall, exclusive of the plume that rises from the center. Some have variegated leaves. They cover a lot of ground and look equally spectacular separately or in groups. Having a few plants take up so much space is a lot easier than planting lots of smaller ones in the same amount of space. And as a bonus, it is not necessary to cut them down in the winter. Once established, they do well in moist soil but are also drought-tolerant.
I enjoy my Pampas Grass, but I need to take my hedge clippers and chop it down as close to the ground as I can get, sometime during the late fall or winter. I excluded shrubbery that requires annual trimming, but at least it’s not necessary to shape pampas grass.
There are also lower-mounding grasses like Mondo Grass. Unfortunately, that one is difficult to establish, and if you want it for a ground cover, can take three years to fill in. It works better as a border.
Liriope looks like an ornamental grass, but it’s actually a member of the lily family. It has little purple flowers. Nothing is better than Liriope at holding soil on slopes. It also makes a nice border. It is good to cut it down to the ground in the late fall, but nothing awful happens if you don’t get to it. In fact, the leaves stay green through the winter and don’t die until the new growth overshadows them.
Ground covers
I planted St. John’s Wort on one sunny part of my yard for the sake of its yellow flowers. It has filled in nicely, and I have seen very few weeds in it. I have had less good luck with my other ground covers. My Periwinkle has done very well in one shady spot, but has not thrived in another. Where it works, I have not had to spend much energy keeping it out of the lawn. It is not as invasive as many ground-cover vines.
As our house backs up to a busy street, we have a berm behind our yard. The steepest part of the berm is between a fence and a rocky dry creek installed for drainage. I have a euonymuss vine called Wintercreeper there and have not had to pay much attention to it. Wintercreeper is invasive, and I would not suggest it as low-maintenance for any place where you have other plants around. It would require aggressive cutting back more than once a year. Since where it is it can only grow up the fence or down into the rocks, I’m pretty happy with it.
Other perennials
Hosta grows well in the shade. It’s almost impossible to kill. Its leaves die back to the ground in winter all by themselves; what’s not to love? It’s expensive to buy very much of it, but if you buy one each of several varieties, you don’t ever have to buy any more. If you have the ambition, dig some of the larger ones up in the spring (after they are in full leaf) and hack them into two or three pieces. Put one back in the same hole and plant the others somewhere else. The pieces won’t look as full as your other Hostas. If it bothers you, wait a few days for them to get used to their new homes, then cut them down to the ground; they’ll come back. If dividing hosta seems like too much work, it isn’t strictly necessary. Hosta flowers are unimpressive, and some people pick them off and discard them. I figure they’re not hurting anything and don’t look ugly, so I just leave them alone. (By the way, I treated Hostas the same way when we were in Illinois. One grew so fast that my wife insisted that I divide it every year. The rest I pretty much left alone unless I had somewhere else that needed some.
In Illinois, I planted ferns between the hostas on one side of the house. I wanted to do something different here, and planted ferns in a place that got more sun than I had counted on. They require shade. I might try ferns again sometime, because once they start growing, they don’t require much work.
The Lenten Rose is about the first thing that blooms in the spring—even before crocuses. I haven’t done much except enjoy them since I put them in. Same with my Day Lilies, although I usually try to deadhead them when they’re finished blooming.
I am especially pleased with my Rose Mallow. I bought it one year when we had exceptionally wet weather and one place that needed something where even a miscanthus had drowned. The label said it did really well in wet soil. It also turns out to be very drought-tolerant. The beautiful flowers that appeared only in the second summer were a bonus. It is absolutely essential to deadhead the flowers as soon as the petals fall off. Otherwise, you will have little Rose Mallows growing all over the place. It is also necessary to cut it to the ground after the frost kills it. That is more work than any of my other suggestions have required, but its beauty is worth it. It grows very tall and wide, but not until the second or third year. Leave it plenty of space.
Annuals
Annuals are usually no problem once you get them planted. I have had very good luck with some and bad luck with others, but they either grow or they don’t. I won’t give my list of winners and losers, because when I wonder why my next door neighbor doesn’t have my troubles with Marigolds, he’s jealous of my Snapdragons. But it was a very pleasant surprise to this transplanted Midwesterner that the Impatiens comes back for a second year, almost as profusely as before. They won’t come back a third year, at least not very many. But it’s certainly nice to know that every spring we can plant half as many as it looks like we ought to, and last year’s bounty will fill in.
Now to make any Midwesterners who read this jealous: Pansies in the South are planted in the fall and last through the winter without even being watered. We had an ice storm one year that left more than half an inch of ice all over everything, and it was days before all of it finally melted. The Pansies shook it off and thrived until the first heat wave. That is one tough flower.
Caveat
I am writing about low-maintenance plants, not no-maintenance plants. They still need to be watered some and weeded more. The only no-maintenance plants I know of are weeds. I have been in towns that forbid grass lawns, so everyone has a variety of wildflowers. My first thought was that it must be nice not to have to take care of a lawn. My next thought was that all of the yards looked nice, not weedy. Those homeowners worked as much on their yards as anyone else works on grass–which everyone knows is not low-maintenance!
