How to Grow a "No-Work" Flower Garden

My goal for you is to have a home that is gorgeous, one that you're proud of, but most importantly, that's really, really, really easy to maintain. But that includes outside. So I'm sharing some of my best tips so that you can have a gorgeous Martha Stewart-level flower garden, but it's almost zero work. No weeding, no watering, and no deadheading. Are you ready for my secrets? Let's jump in. Here's my three criteria for choosing flowers that are zero work. One, they have to be a perennial, which means they come back every year. You just have to plant it once and never touch it again. That is totally important. And the second thing is they have to be drought resistant and pest resistant. I'm not about watering, okay? I don't want to water and I don't have to worry about bugs or rabbits or deer. And the third thing is I want them to be cut flowers. And what I mean by that is I want to be able to cut them and bring them in the house and put them in a vase because that's the best part of having a flower garden. So the first, and my personal favorite, is the cone flower. This is my first year having this garden. So these are all babies. They're not big right now. But two to three years from now, this garden is going to be bursting with big, beautiful flowers. And the cone flower is amazing because you don't gotta water it. It blooms basically from mid-June all the way to frost. Big, gorgeous, purple flowers that you can cut and bring in your house and nothing will kill it. So if you're like me and you can't keep a plant alive to save your life, cone flower, friend, all day. My second most favoritest flower of all time is called the black-eyed Susan. And they're, again, perennial. So they come back every year. So beautiful. They don't bloom probably till the first week of July, but then all the way to frost. So you have flowers all summer long. You don't have to deadhead them. You don't have to water them. They're the flower that keeps on giving. Totally gorgeous. And again, super pest resistant. Nothing. You plant it and you walk away and you have gorgeous flowers that you can put in your house in a vase all year long. Okay, next we have coreopsis. I love this flower so much. Coreopsis is one of my favorites because it has the longest bloom. This has been blooming. This is my first year with this plant. It's a baby and it's been blooming all of June and it's going to bloom right until fall. The only thing about coreopsis is you do have to pull some of the dead heads off a little bit. But it's a small price to pay for a gorgeous flower that doesn't require water, that's pest resistant, and you can cut the flowers and bring them in the house. And it comes back every year. It's like, listen, lazy girl. Yes. Also, shasta daisies. Shasta daisies are, again, they bloom. Look, they're already blooming. This is one year old baby plant already blooming. It's going to bloom all the way till the end of July. You might even get some of the August in there as well. I love them because they're so beautiful. They're like little sunbursts. You can cut them. You can bring them in the house. Again, you don't have to water them. They're pest resistant. But the thing about shasta daisies are, I'm going to tell you, they spread a little bit. That's the only downside. So every spring, you might have to like pull out babies you don't want. But I have a tip to make that that you don't have to do that, which I'm going to share in a minute. But let's move on. More of my favorite flowers. I love lilies so much. They smell amazing. They're my favorite flower to cut and bring in the house. They're a bulb. So they come back year after year. But I'm not talking about daylilies. I actually hate daylilies. I'm going to put those in the what plants not to plant in your garden. And we'll talk about that at the end of this video. But a lily is great. You plant it once and they, again, require very little work. They're drought resistant. You don't want to do much to them. But make sure you're planting either the orange lily, the white lily, the stargazer lily. It's pink. Oh, it's so beautiful. But stay away from the daylilies. This bad boy is called a blanket flower. He's brand new little baby. So he's small, but it will get like one foot by one foot big, beautiful bush. Here's why it's awesome. I challenge you to kill a blanket flower. It's basically impossible to kill this incredible perennial. It doesn't need to be watered very often. It's drought resistant. But any soil like you can have clay, you can have sand. It doesn't matter. This thing is like it is it is unkillable. And it has beautiful flowers that last all summer long. Speaking of unkillable, lavender is a plant that you will just never it will never die, friends. I love it so much. Not only is it gorgeous, it has really fragrant flowers. You know, lavender, you can cut it, bring it in the house, use it for medicinal purposes. Use it as potpourri. But it needs no water. You plant it and forget about it until you want to actually cut the blooms off and use it for something. If you've had lavender and you've killed it in the past, it's because you've watered it. It's like a cactus up in here. Plant it and leave it alone, friends. I have Spanish lavender. That's what this is. And I also have English lavender. Both of them are less than a year old, and they're already big and gorgeous. And they will come back year after year. If you live in like a really dry climate where it never really rains and you do not want to water anything, go with grass. These ornamental grasses are unkillable, really drought resistant. They come back every year and they just require zero work. I also wanted to include this little flower called a pincushion. I haven't had the best luck with pincushion. I love them because they attract butterflies better than any other flower I've ever planted. But they do require part shade. You can't put them in full shade, but you also can't put them in full sun. So I'm kind of cooking this little brand new baby here. I'm hoping it lives, but I might have to move it. And I forgot to almost mention Russian sage. Any type of sage, beautiful plant. It's hardy. It's a lot like a grass in that you don't have to water it, but it has beautiful purple flowers. Next up on the list is like a staple in cottage gardens, and that's called phlox. So this was here when we bought the house. Looks like a couple years old, but I also planted some babies in the back garden. It's not great for cut flowers, but it is a perennial that comes back every year and it will start blooming in July all the way to frost. Gorgeous. Tons of different colors. Big beautiful blooms. It's just one of those plants that's like the most beautiful flower and you never have to touch it. You don't have to water it. It's like a weed, but it looks gorgeous. You need some phlox. But if you have a shade garden, you can see phlox also do really well in shade. But I got to talk about hostas. Try killing a hosta. They're amazing. They get flowers too. They're not crazy beautiful flowers, but it's all about the leaves. Oh, so many different kinds and colors. But my favorite thing about a hosta is you can like take your shovel, just cut it in half and replant them anywhere. Share them with friends. In fact, all of the flowers that I talked about today can be shared with friends. So you don't have to spend money and buy these plants. If you know someone who has a garden, ask them for babies. Ask them for little parts of their plants and you can have a garden that costs you nothing. Let's talk about the worst flowers. They might look pretty at the garden center. Maybe you know someone who has some and they're like, Hey, do you want some of these? Do not do it, friends. Starting with lily of the valley. You see this lily of the valley was something that obviously the previous homeowner planted. They probably had one little one that they got for Easter and they put it in the ground and it has taken over. And that's why you shouldn't plant it. Anything that's super invasive like this, that will choke out all your other plants and just acts like a weed is a big no-no. Also, it only blooms for two weeks of the year. And then the rest of the time, you just have these ugly little leaves that are the bane of your existence. Also, buttercups, mountain bluet, irises. All of these are super spreaders. This is all lily of the valley. Look at this. It just spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads. And you can keep ripping, but it just keeps coming back because it's a perennial. And it just never, it just is the... Don't do this. Don't plant lily of the valley. I hate it so much. Like what? Why won't you die? I can't grow a plant, but I can't kill this one. You see, I'm not getting the root. So it's just going to keep coming back. It's like clutter. It's like never ending decluttering. I'm also not a fan of daylilies. Daylilies aren't technically lilies. Each flower only lasts for one day. So you constantly have to deadhead them. That's work, friends. I don't want my garden to be work. And I cannot not mention peonies. I actually love peonies. I find them so beautiful. They're so easy to care for, but they attract ants like nobody's business. So you can't cut them and bring them in the house. You can't even stand by them or you have ants attacking you. And last but not least is foxglove. Beautiful. It's gorgeous. Also super poisonous and deadly. So unless you want to kill your husband by making a foxglove tea, which I've heard is undetectable in an autopsy. No, but seriously, super poisonous. Stay away from foxglove, friends. Those are the flowers I hate the most. Quick tips for making gardening a lot easier is eliminating weeds. I really recommend going with landscape fabric and double layering it. I know people have talked about putting down cardboard or newspaper, but I want this crap to last. I never want weeds again. And it just is great. Whether you're starting with a new garden or an existing garden, you can lay it out. Just cut holes around your flowers and make sure that everything else is covered with the landscaping fabric. And of course, mulch. Mulch is definitely a must in your garden. Not only does it help keep down the weeds, but you don't have to water as often. It helps regulate the soil temperature. So if it gets cold or too hot, your plants are really protected. And it just looks crazy beautiful. It's cheap too. A couple of bags of mulch is like three dollars a bag. Or if you have a big garden to do, call a landscaping company, have them deliver a truckload for you, drop it on a tarp and mulch your entire garden for around 25 bucks. I want to quickly talk about some edible plants that you can plant that are really easy to care for. And my favorite by far, hands down, is having a big herb pot just like this. I do this every year. It makes me feel like a homesteader, friends. But it's basically zero work. And the trick is having a really big pot on the bottom so you don't have to water it very often. And then I actually layer pots on top so that I can plant even more in one pot. We have everything from cilantro to basil. We have oregano, thyme. We have rosemary. It's gorgeous. We cut it. We cook with it almost every day. And if you plant things like chives, not only, you know, can you eat them, but they come back every year, even in the pot. So if you do nothing else, planting a big, beautiful herb pot like this is a must. Next year, we are going to be planting a big vegetable garden. But this year, we just have pots for things that I can't kill, which are tomatoes, especially cherry tomatoes. I love them. Throw them in a pot, put them on your balcony or anywhere in your yard, and you're going to have like fresh tomatoes all the time. I am not a gardener, friend. I have a black thumb. I can grow tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, peppers and lettuce. No problem. And if I can do it, you can do it too. If you want to have flowers in pots like this, here's a really quick tip. I have tried just buying like individual annuals and putting them in a pot. And it's so expensive. It's way cheaper to get a pre-made pot, especially from Costco. Costco has hands down the best price on their pots and so many different varieties of flowers are in them. But the secret is to take them out of the Costco pot and transplant them into a much bigger pot filled with dirt. And I put some stones at the bottom for drainage. But transplanting them means that I have a lot more dirt. So I have to water a lot less. This big pot, I only have to water once every two weeks. My final tip, if you really want to have hanging baskets like this, so I have ferns and hanging flowers in the front, is to get a self-watering system. I used to think this was like crazy expensive. And then when we bought this house, they had it hooked up in the back already. Some hosing. You just turn on a nozzle and it waters all the baskets at once. And I really wanted it for the front. We got all the supplies off Amazon. The hoses, the nozzles, everything we need for less than $50. So you can set this up. Just put the nozzle in each of the plants. String the hose together. Attach it to your regular garden hose. And that's it, friends. Turn it on and water all the plants at one time for ultimate laziness. You gotta try this. I almost forgot. I made you a printable. The Lazy Girl's Guide to the Perfect Flower Garden. I'm going to put a link to that down below with the list of all the plants that I talked about and all the reasons why they're awesome. Thanks so much for watching. I would love to do more Lazy Girl homemaking hack type videos. Let me know in the comments below if that's something you'd like to see. Maybe baking, cooking, cleaning, organizing, decorating. We can have a gorgeous house without having to do all the work. So let me know what you would like to see in the comments below. Make sure you hit that like button and subscribe. And I'll see you guys next time. Thank you guys so much for those of you who have stayed to the end. This is an SOS. I need your help. I inherited this pond. It came with the house when we bought it. And in theory, having a pond's amazing. In real life, it's a green swamp and I'm lazy. I don't know how to keep it clean. We don't have fish in here. All we have is like dead mice and dead frogs most of the time. I've been putting in like chlorine pucks, hoping that can kill the algae, but it's always filled with like leaves and green. And it's just it's a swamp up in here and it's constantly running out of water. Give me your pond secrets. And also, if you're thinking of putting in a pond, don't do it, friends. Don't do it. It's a nightmare. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong. I need a Lazy Girl's guide to maintaining a pond because I'm like two seconds from filling it with concrete. It is the bane of my existence. I'm going to scoop out some dead stuff now. Why? Just get a pond, they say. It's magical, they say. And so it's so magical. Like what? Filter's always full. It's always green. Isn't it supposed to have like lily pads or something on it? But then it couldn't put chlorine in it. So like, but the chlorine is the only thing keeping it from not being a sludge vest. Why? Why do people do this?