Top 5 – Low or no Maintenance Plants

I’m feeling a little swamped with work at the moment and have very little time to garden at the moment.  In light of that I felt it appropriate to celebrate those plants that reliably produce no matter what.  These are the plants that don’t need much of a feeding regime, that will forgive difficult conditions, erratic watering and general neglect.  Some of them even conveniently replant themselves for you, saving even the bother of sowing seed.

In no particular order they are:

Chervil – I bought a chervil plant once – that was 3 years ago, and ever since I’ve had chervil.  Its growing amidst the strawberries at the base of an aging passionfruit, so its not without competition for nutrients or water.  It doesn’t seem to mind, instead it grows happily there in the shade and once a year it flowers, goes to seed and thus the next chervil plants are born.  There are many more of them now than when I started 3 years ago.  If only everything was this easy.

Rosemary – I actually don’t like rosemary much so I tried to kill the plant I do have.   I dug it up taking cuttings for friends all of which conveniently struck.  Then the original plant re-shot from some roots I must have missed so now I have rosemary again.   I never water it, I never feed it, I do prune it occasionally to give to visitors who enjoy it but otherwise it just goes happily about its business.  Really its the perfect plant, I just wish I could develop a taste for it.

Swiss Chard/Silverbeet – As long as you choose a green or white stemmed variety the growing experience goes something like this: Sow seed, seed grows, plant out seedlings if you sowed seed in punnets/pots.  Watch it grow.  Harvest leaves.  Enjoy eating leaves.  And that’s about it.  Now I’m sure you would get bigger and better plants if you gave it useful things like food, water and sun but I find it grows pretty well without much in the way of either fertiliser or sun.  It does need a bit of water though but you can’t have everything.

Parsley – Now I know that not everyone seems to have the same success with parsley but for me it just grows and grows.  Eventually it does go to seed (some of my plants are looking as though they are about to send up seed heads as we speak).  After it goes to seed it helpfully scatters said seed onto ground and new plants grow, and so on.  Once again its happy in sun or shade, doesn’t need much soil enrichment and as long as its got a reasonable amount of water its happy enough.

Rocket – There are quite a few salad leaves I could have included: sorrel, some types of lettuce, beets etc but for me rocket is the easiest mainly for its prolific self seeding qualities.  It also seems to need less water than many lettuce varieties.  Funnily enough I actually don’t have any rocket in the garden at the moment due to a conscious decision to remove it from the areas it had been growing the last few years.  Luckily this should be easily rectified as it tends to germinate fairly easily and grow quickly.  Hopefully I will find the time to sow the seeds.

What plants grow best for you in your garden?

The New Goodlife should have a Top 5 to explore, if not now then soon, so head over to check.