Low-Maintenance Garden Design Tips

Gardens bring serenity to our home environments – a space to slow down, reconnect with nature, absorb the tranquillity and even a chance to cultivate your very own oasis for the hobbyists among us. But you don’t have to be a green thumb gardener or spend hours of your week working on your outdoor space to create a beautiful garden.

By selecting the right garden design style, outdoor materials and plants for your outdoor area to minimise cleaning and maintenance time and energy, you can create an appealing garden that asks for little upkeep. Imagine slashing your garden spring cleaning checklist to a couple of unavoidable tasks that keep your garden lush and strong all year round.

Outback Fencing is a renowned supplier of high-quality, innovative outdoor materials. Across our range, you’ll find items that last longer, are easier to keep clean and maintain, and look fantastic in all kinds of backyards, whether you’re building in the bush or in an urban oasis. Below, we’ll provide our top garden design tips to keep your space low-maintenance and (almost) hassle-free.

Pick PVC Fencing for Effortless Garden Boundaries

Let’s start with the perimeter of your garden – the boundary fencing. The trick to finding the best low-maintenance fencing for your garden is to strike the right balance between structural integrity and minimised upkeep. For us Aussies, we need to consider things like wind intensity, corrosion damage from salt, rain, air moisture and UV exposure. All of these factors can quickly make the wrong type of fence fail and require a lot of maintenance work to combat.

Thankfully, there are some great, popular fence materials that are designed to endure the climate conditions. PVC fencing is a fantastic choice for low-maintenance outdoor spaces. They look really attractive too, close to the appearance of wood, but the main difference between PVC and timber fencing is that the composite material in PVC won’t rust or rot and is resistant to termites and UV damage. They don’t require painting or sealing, either, so after they’re installed, you can more or less leave them be for years without upkeep.

Our PVC fencing here at Outback Fencing comes in a number of different styles, including full privacy for urban homes needing seclusion, slat-top for a stylish flair and a classical vertical pale style. This versatility in design makes our range of PVC fences suitable for a wide variety of aesthetic tastes, with little upkeep required to keep them looking their best.

Go for Hardy, Low-Maintenance Plants

Moving on to the heart of your garden: the greenery. For plants, there are countless different species, arrangements and presentations to explore, and endless possibilities to achieve your dream garden. This means you can limit your selections to only hardy, low-maintenance plants and still be left with ample opportunity. Low-maintenance plants are ones that require minimal interference to live a long and happy life.

For plants that thrive with minimal watering, pruning or pest control, native Australian plants are always a great option, and there are many shapes, sizes and colours to choose from to design an Australian native garden. Some plant variety options are Kangaroo Paw, Lomandra, Grevillea and Westringia, which are well-adapted to local conditions, meaning they practically take care of themselves once established.

Or if natives aren't your thing, succulents are a hardy type of plant that provides a unique look full of character. You could plant succulents in pots for an extra versatile option, and the wall climbers and evergreen shrubs for a contrast of sizes, textures and colours without seasonal fuss. Healthy, lively greenery in your space also has big benefits when it comes to boosting the value of your rural property, so anything hard to maintain puts this value at risk.

Rethink Your Lawn Space

Lawn care is one of the most time-consuming outdoor chores – time spent mowing, edging, weeding and watering quickly adds up and can steal a lot of your spare time away. Considering you’re practically cultivating a crop that sits at ground level and doesn't bear fruit, you might consider getting rid of it altogether and reworking the ground area into something easier to maintain.

To cut back on maintenance, there are many great alternative options to a lawn. Firstly, staying on the greenery tone, ground cover plants like creeping thyme, mondo grass, baby tears, or native violet offer a beautiful look, full of character and tranquillity. For a truly no-fuss option, you can replace grass with gravel and pavers, and play with different textures and shapes of both the pavers and the gravel around it. You can then add greenery into low-maintenance pots like PVC planter boxes to bring that plant life into the scene. This works great for walkways between sections of your outdoor space, too.

Use Composite Decking Instead of Timber

Once again, we need to shine a spotlight on timber features. Wood is attractive, but unfortunately, there is no place for it in a low-maintenance garden. Timber decking, in particular, requires sanding and refinishing every year or so to keep it looking fresh and appealing, and that’s before it starts to rot and needs replacing.

Swapping out high-care surfaces like timber for low-maintenance alternatives is a game-changer, especially with modern-day options that have a similarly appealing aesthetic. They provide structure to your garden while keeping upkeep to a minimum. Materials like gravel, stone pavers and composite decking are not only weather-resistant but also much easier to clean.

Choose Pool Fencing that Offers Safety and Protects the Pool

For pool owners, long-lasting, easy-to-maintain pool fencing is a critical part of pool landscaping in your garden space. You need to select a pool fence that keeps kids and animals safe in your garden. But did you know, your pool fence can actually work as a way to minimise pool maintenance by keeping pests, debris and anything that gets carried with the wind away? This is why glass pool fencing is a top pick for low-maintenance garden design.

Glass pool fencing is a sleek, stylish option that happens to be very low-maintenance while also blocking debris and other things from flying into and polluting the pool, and minimising pool maintenance, too. The transparency of the glass offers total visibility into the pool area, which is crucial for backyard safety and allows younger children to enjoy the pool area.

The transparency also offers an unobtrusive look that visually opens up the space. In terms of how to clean and maintain your pool fencing, just some occasional cleaning with water and a squeegee is enough to keep it sparkling. Don't forget to wipe down the spigots, too. As glass pool fencing has minimal metal components compared to traditional aluminium fencing, it’s a durable, long-term fencing choice that won’t rust, warp or require painting.

Implement Some Smart Garden Design Elements

Although you can go for drought-tolerant plants in your garden, we know that plants of all different kinds can really help a garden feel complete and full of character. So if you do want to choose more demanding plants for your garden, you can utilise smart garden design to help minimise the required maintenance.

Some smart designs don’t involve tech at all, but rather following simple planning guidance on the art of functional landscaping. Firstly, remember to mulch often. A thick layer of mulch around garden beds not only suppresses weed growth but also helps retain moisture in the soil, reducing the need for frequent watering and weeding. Choose organic mulch for gardens with natives or bark mulch for a longer-lasting finish that suits modern, natural landscapes.

Another great smart garden idea is to install an automated, drip irrigation or sprinkler system that takes the guesswork (and legwork) out of garden care. Smart irrigation controllers allow you to schedule watering based on plant needs or local weather conditions, so your garden stays hydrated without daily monitoring.

Simple in Your Design, But Thoughtful in Your Selections

A streamlined layout with fewer but hardy plant varieties and materials chosen for their durability and low-effort upkeep makes ongoing garden maintenance easier. Creating a stunning garden doesn’t have to mean taking on a second job as a full-time landscaper.

Swap out your lawn for alternatives like ground covers, composite decking, gravel or low-maintenance pavers to save yourself hours a month on grass care. Replace wood with PVC fencing, and timber decking for a more advanced composite material that won’t rot, rust or warp. Instead of traditional metal pool fencing vulnerable to corrosion, go for glass pool fencing for a clean, modern look that is one of the safest outdoor fences for kids and has the added bonus of minimising pool maintenance. Complement these with hardy plants that thrive with little input, and you can create a space that’s just as beautiful as it is easy to care for.

Finally, aim for a layout and garden elements that work to minimise maintenance, like mulch that suppresses weeds and retains soil moisture and make use of clever garden tech like irrigation systems to automate the grunt work. Nearly all of these low-maintenance materials don’t require a larger investment either, making garden design budgeting easy throughout the process.

By focusing on simplicity, functionality and smart material choices, you can enjoy your outdoor space year-round with more peace of mind and less upkeep – and your garden can stay a place to relax, not another item on your to-do list. As purveyors of premium outdoor materials that offer a long lifespan, Outback Fencing are always here to help you find the best materials to keep your garden manageable yet beautiful – contact us for support in your garden design and installation journey.