Ready to see how KD Landscape can transform your suburban Chicago estate with low-maintenance plants? We’d love to share our design and installation expertise with you. We can help you add some plants that add incredible impact without you needing to monitor or watch them all the time. We have years of experience working with a multitude of plants and know which ones have proven to work well in home landscapes and which ones haven’t. If you’re still uncertain whether your landscape has conditions that make low maintenance more challenging, or if you haven’t been able to understand which plants truly have lower care needs, let KD Landscape help. We hope these tips help you realize there are some great options that can give you the look you’re after without taking up a lot of your time and energy. Whether you have a home in Naperville, Elmhurst, Hinsdale, or another Chicago suburb, you can always appreciate plants that deliver the color, texture, and positive vibes without a lot of fuss. Low-maintenance landscape plants normally don’t need staking or dividing or excessive watering, yet they pack a powerful punch in your yard all the same. Being Low Maintenance Doesn’t Have to Be Boring Then add an ornamental grass with blue tones like blue oatgrass for another contrasting texture and color. We like to pair red-leaf plants with chartreuse-leaf plants for contrast, and then we add something blue in the foreground or background to bring another element to the space.įor instance, if you have a 6-foot to 8-foot wide sun to part shade corner, try ‘Tiger Eye’ sumac for big impact paired with ‘Spilled Wine’ weigela in front or a ‘Diablo’ or “Little Devil’ ninebark with it’s darker burgundy leaves on the side.
Creative Combinationsīeing creative is part of the fun with incorporating low-maintenance plants.įor instance, there are some fun ways you can pair low-maintenance plants for suburban Chicago homes together for maximum impact. Another great low-maintenance landscape plant is ‘Invincibelle Ruby,’ which promises some red color and does best in sun. ‘Incrediball’ is a bigger version if you enjoy some floppy flowers after a rainstorm. It’s adaptable to both sun and shade and even wetter conditions. Hydrangea ‘Annabell’ has lovely white flowers. They have great, large flower heads that persist all summer long, which is exactly when we want to enjoy our outdoor spaces. Hydrangea varieties seem to multiply every year … and for good reason. It’s not what you’d expect from an arborvitae, and that’s what makes it so special. This low-maintenance landscape plant brings orange to red foliage at a 3- to 4-foot height. We’ve used ‘Fire Chief’ globe arborvitae in some Naperville, Elmhurst, and Hinsdale landscapes to incorporate a high-contrast evergreen, and it does the trick. If you’re not a fan of boxwood, you can try inkberry holly the ‘Shamrock’ variety is similar in size and texture to boxwoods. Smaller leaf varieties are nice try ‘Green Gem,’ ‘Chicagoland Green,’ or ‘Northern Charm.’ They can be kept to a 30-inch height with selective pruning and shaping, but they can also get to 4 feet without a lot of work. Boxwoodīoxwoods are great best landscaping plants for Illinois because they are evergreen and you can use them as reliable backdrops or to provide structure in your garden spaces without a lot of work. This ensures your plants thrive and showcase the best flowers and color.Įven the best low-maintenance varieties need the right planting environments to represent this low-hassle nature. There are similar rules for each plant on soil moisture and type. For instance, plant sun-loving plants in areas that receive 6-plus hours of sun and shade-loving plants in those that receive less than 4 hours of direct sunlight. This means for any species you want to match the plant’s ideal conditions. When selecting low maintenance landscape plants, the initial step is to follow the rule of “right plant, right place.” Try some of our favorite plants that pack a colorful or textural punch, but don’t require a ton of hassle.
Luckily, with low maintenance landscape plants you can have your lovely landscape and less maintenance, too. That doesn’t sound like too much to ask for as a homeowner in the Greater Chicago area. Who doesn’t? But what you don’t want is the maintenance - lots of pruning and TLC.
You want a lovely landscape full of color and texture.