A low-maintenance garden with prolonged aesthetic appeal is the primary request made of landscape designers today. A contemporary solution lies in creating large, sustainable plant communities across extensive areas.
To establish these communities, plants must be selected with careful consideration of the specific site's ecology. One must not alter the site's ecology to suit the needs of a specific plant—the effect will only be temporary and will require constant labor to maintain those conditions.
The foundation of sustainable communities consists of shrubs, structural and filler perennials with year-round aesthetic appeal that are capable of growing in one place for a long time without replanting or meticulous maintenance, are non-invasive, frost-hardy, and resistant to diseases and pests.
Primary maintenance of sustainable plantings is limited to cutting back perennials once a year, pruning and rejuvenating shrubs every few years, applying fertilizer, and weeding during the first few seasons until the plants knit together into a unified mass. Over time, some minor adjustments to the planting scheme and the removal of self-sown seedlings may be required.
A contemporary alternative to the lawn is sustainable plant communities of shrubs and perennials, capable of thriving in a given site over the long term with minimal maintenance.
Yana Danyuk
Principal Designer
Yana Danyuk
Principal Designer of Gardeniana. She creates designer gardens in Athens and throughout Greece.
