Tag Archives: Aging

Advice, Garden Design, Native Plants

Downsizing Your Garden to make it easier to Manage

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By Rachel Burrows, Master Gardener

As I get older and want to age in place, my current garden has become too large to manage. I also know that if I have to move, an extensive landscape may scare off potential buyers. So, it is time to take a long hard look at my garden and the plants in it. I have put together some suggestions and ideas to make it easier to enjoy your garden.

First of all, plan ahead to reduce the amount of time and physical effort needed to maintain the garden and make it easier to manage. And enjoy.

  • Prioritize a few plants that hold special memories that you really love and recognize that you want to keep them.
  • Ask your self the following questions about your perennials.
    • Is it waterwise?
    • Does it need staking or trellising?
    • Is it drought or heat resistant?
    • Does it get a lot of insect damage?
    • Does it require dead heading?
    • After blooming is it boring?

You may want to take out and give away high maintenance plants that meet the criteria above and think about replacing with these ideas.

  • Emphasize foliage rather than flowers
  • Choose grasses such as Karl Foester,or Panicum vigatum
  • Choose shade plants such as foam flower (tiarella), wild ginger (asarum canadense), Japanese painted fern (Athyrium Nipponicum Pictum)

These will provide interest and texture and need little care.

  • Shrubs offer more value for less  work: Spireas, Hydrangeas, prostrate blue spruce, ninebark. The birds will love you!
  • Hardy perennials such as Sedum Autumn Joy, Lambs Ears, Siberian Iris, Day Lilies, Anise Hyssop Blue Fortune (Agastache)
  • Seasonal perennial bulbs.
  • Use raised beds and containers. They are easier to reach, don’t get as many weeds and don’t need as much bending.

Lawns can require a lot of time to mow and trim. Think about shrinking grass areas and replace with ground covers such as creeping thyme. The bees love thyme and it can be run over occasionally with a mower Another idea is to replace grass with a stone feature. There may be a teenager in the area willing to mow and use a weed whacker for a reasonable price.

Go native and replace some of the lawn with a meadow garden of native grasses and flowers. Once established this only needs mowing once a year. However, this needs a lot of research and planning in order for it to be successful.

I grassed over my vegetable garden and just grow veggies in a raised bed and containers; realizing that the containers will need fertilizing.  I find this provides me with enough vegetables, needs little weeding and less bending.

I plan to remain in my bungalow for several years and hope to be able to manage and enjoy my lower maintenance garden.

Further information;

Slowgardenlife.com by Catherine A. Carte: 47 low maintenance garden ideas

www. gardendesign.com

Gardening for a Lifetime – how to garden wisely as you get older by Sydney Eddison

Advice, Garden rejuvenation

The Unexpected Gift of a Garden Makeover

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By Silvia Strobl, Master Gardener

In March 2020, as the COVID shutdown closed garden centres and much of everyday life, my husband and I began the first phase of making my mother’s garden easier to maintain. Her Hamilton home had long been hidden from the street by a dense Chinese Elm (Ulmus parvifolia) hedge and a tall wooden driveway gate.

The hedge was much hated by my brothers and I when we still lived there because we had to help trim it every 3 weeks during the growing season. And now my 80-year-old Mom was still climbing a ladder to trim it, worrying us all!

Photo: Silvia Strobl CC-BY NC SA: The Chinese Elm hedge and the wooden driveway gate (left) had been hiding an ornate Victorian wrought-iron fence for at least 60 years.

When she suggested restoring the antique Victorian fence buried within the hedge, I eagerly agreed. It was the perfect opportunity to remove both the hedge and the front lawn, creating a lower-maintenance landscape.

Photo: Silvia Strobl CC-BY NC SA: Chinese Elm can be identified by its small, simple, alternate leaves that are elliptical to ovate, dark green, glossy, and finely serrated. Leaves are 1–2.5 inches long, with an asymmetrical base and a lateral vein ending in a tooth.

To prevent the vigorous Chinese Elm from resprouting, we dug several inches below each stump and made a second cut beneath the soil surface. We replaced the hedge and lawn with conifers for year-round structure, flowering shrubs for seasonal colour, and natural cedar mulch over landscape fabric to reduce watering and weeding.

Photos: Silvia Strobl CC-BY NC SA: Chinese elm stems were first cut above soil level (left), then soil was dug out around each stump (right) so that root stocks could be cut again several inches below the soil surface to prevent resprouting. The restored Victorian fence and newly smithed matching driveway gate had already been installed before work began.

Photos: Silvia Strobl CC-BY NC SA: Preparation of holes (left) and freshly planted columnar white cedars, Dwarf Hinoki Cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), European Smoke Bush (Cotinus coggygria), Shrubby Cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa) and Goldmound Spirea (Spirea japonica) (right). Landscape cloth covered by natural cedar mulch was used to minimize both watering in early years of establishment and weeding.

Results and an Unexpected Reward

The transformation eliminated the constant hedge trimming and lawn mowing. After the first year of regular watering, maintenance was limited to my annual pruning of the Potentilla and Spirea, coppicing the Smoke Bush, and topping up the cedar mulch each spring.

The biggest surprise, however, was how opening the garden to the street transformed my mother’s experience. The restored Victorian fence and new driveway gate allowed passersby to admire the perennial gardens inside, which I had also helped refresh in 2020. People regularly stopped to compliment her, and some even said they had changed their walking route so they could enjoy it every day. Those conversations and kind words brought my mother tremendous joy. Gardens are meant to be shared, and for nearly 50 years the solid wooden gate and Chinese Elm hedge had hidden this one from view.

Photos: Silvia Strobl CC-BY NC SA: View into the garden from the new driveway gate.

In 2022, she opened her garden for the now-discontinued Hamilton Spectator Open Garden Week, and it was featured in the Hamilton Spectator by organizer and columnist Rob Howard.

One of the many people who admired the garden while walking his dog later nominated my mother for a City of Hamilton Trillium Award, which recognizes excellence in residential landscaping and community beautification. In 2024, she was delighted to receive a White Trillium Award, that recognizes the top-scoring gardens in each city ward, and was honoured with the award again in 2025.

Gardening has been a lifelong passion for my mother. Transforming the front garden into a beautiful, low-maintenance landscape not only eliminated the demanding chore of biweekly hedge and lawn care, but also created a space that brings joy to both the gardener and everyone who passes by.

REFERENCES

Biology Insights. 2026. How to Get Rid of Chinese Elm Trees for Good. https://biologyinsights.com/how-to-get-rid-of-chinese-elm-trees-for-good/

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