I am persevering through Maria Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and taking action. When I was in my garden weeding recently I wondered if I could have a KonMari session outside. Kondo never mentions tidying a garden in her book, but maybe it is because she lives in Japan and doesn’t have a yard? But if we do have a yard, can we apply the same concept?
Kondo insists that once we completely go through our entire house and finish the tidying of EVERYTHING, we won’t need to do this event ever again. It would be just a quarterly or bi-yearly maintenance tidying in the house. I have not finished my entire house yet so I can’t speak on this matter.
If we look at all our perennials, trees, shrubs, annuals, and grasses in our yard, we could take out any plant that doesn’t spark joy. We could plant low maintenance plants & shrubs that we love. And when a good mulch is applied that would prevent weeds from coming up too quickly. What about lawn or grass? That is usually the easiest to maintain but needs to be mowed more often than every couple of months. Hmm.. something to think about.
Right now, our teenagers help me in our yard for 15 minutes every week. I decided on 15 minutes because Flylady recommends decluttering for 15 minutes every day in the house. Kondo says that if you only do 15 minutes a day, you will never finish your home and you will be tidying for the rest of your life! These two might have to have a clearing clutter debate 🙂
This is how I feel about gardening- it seems to be never-ending. But will it really work, a low maintenance garden, and still spark joy to look at? I guess more research is needed for me to find easy, slow-growing plants that I love. Either that or have more kids to help! HA! (Not happening!) What do you do? Do you have professional gardeners come and do the yard work for you? Or do you just let your garden go natural? Please share your favorite low maintenance plants. Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading your comments.
Clearing Clutter 
I love succulents and container gardens. They seem to be the best way for me to have plants that won’t get mowed over by the lawn man. Because they are low maintenance I enjoy them more and stay out of the blazing FL sun.
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Succulents are great since they need little watering! I will have to add more to my garden. Thanks!
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