Low-Maintenance Landscaping in Salt Lake City? Here’s our top 12 Tips
Updated: May 19
With so many beautiful natural landscapes surrounding Salt Lake City, you’d think creating a beautiful landscape for your own home would be easy, right? Unfortunately, no. Hot, dry summers and wet, freezing winters aren’t a great combination for easy plant care.
There are ways, though, to make gardening in Utah a whole lot less work. Using these 12 low-maintenance landscaping ideas, you can design a yard that’ll have you spending less time working in the great outdoors and more time enjoying it.
12 Low-Maintenance Landscaping Ideas for Salt Lake Yards
1. No-sweat natives
When you use native plants, you won’t have to worry about them dying in the cold of winter or the heat of summer. Plants native to Utah are used to the local climate, so they can survive in your landscape with little help from you.
Native plants have also adapted to this area’s pests, soils, and modest levels of rainfall, so you’ll spend less time watering, fertilizing, and dealing with pests than you would with non-natives.
Great Basin sagebrush, Utah mountain lilac, and silvery lupine (pictured) are all examples of native Salt Lake City plants that would grow well and look great in your yard.
2. Rainless is painless with xeriscaping
Xeriscaping is a great low-maintenance landscaping technique for Salt Lake City because xeriscapes survive on little water. These water-wise gardens do well during droughts because they feature drought-tolerant plants and hardscapes. You won’t have to water a xeriscape even during long periods with no rain.
Good plants for xeriscaping in Utah include cold-hardy succulents and drought-tolerant natives such as indigo bush, yucca, and evening primrose.
3. Creative container gardens
Instead of planting your flowers and other plants in the ground, consider designing an outdoor container garden that will be easier to care for. Container gardens can feature plants in pots, planter boxes, or repurposed containers such as barrels and wheelbarrows.
For people with limited mobility, container gardens are a more accessible alternative to traditional gardens, since you won’t have to get on your knees to plant or tend them. Plants in containers are also easier to switch out if one dies or if you want to fill your yard with different colors for different times of year.
When winter rolls around and temperatures start to drop, container gardens have even more benefits. To protect your potted plants from freezing, all you’ll need to do is bring them inside. That way, you’ll have more plant options and you won’t have to worry about frost protection measures such as covering your plants.
4. Singin’ in the rain (garden)
While a rain garden might take some creativity, research, and effort to design and build, it will be more low-maintenance in the long run than a traditional garden. That’s because rain gardens collect stormwater runoff and therefore don’t need supplemental watering from you. After you establish your rain garden, it can take care of itself for the most part.
That’s not all rain gardens are good for. They’re also an easy way to help the environment because they filter pollutants out of stormwater runoff before it flows into the Great Salt Lake and other local basins. With a rain garden, you can help keep Salt Lake City’s water clean, so it doesn’t go the way of the city’s air, which is among the most polluted in the U.S.
For your SLC rain garden, you’ll want to use plants that can tolerate both drought and flooding so your rain garden lives through dry periods and standing water for up to 48 hours after rainfall.
5. Make your own rain with an automatic irrigation system
If the idea of a high water bill doesn’t bother you, an automatic irrigation system is an effective way to make your Salt Lake City landscape more low-maintenance. During the dry season, all you would need to do to keep your lawn and garden from thirsting to death is set the timer on your sprinklers.
Even though it can get expensive, installing an irrigation system might be worth it for you, since automatic sprinklers increase property value and set you free from having to manually water your plants.
6. Artfully artificial
With artificial grass, you won’t need sprinklers or rain. Artificial grass looks its best year-round without any maintenance. It doesn’t need watering, and best of all, it doesn’t need mowing. Scratch off your to-do list pushing a heavy lawn mower in the oppressive summer sun if you install an artificial lawn.
In a home with pets or children who enjoy running around outside, artificial grass is a doubly good idea. Those sweet little feet can crash through an artificial lawn without damaging it and causing more landscape problems for you to solve.
7. Gorgeous ground covers
Another way to reduce time spent mowing in summer is to replace your grass with a ground cover, which is a living plant that requires much less maintenance than a traditional lawn.
There are hundreds of ground covers to choose from with different looks for different landscapes. Some have colorful flowers, while others are a more understated green, much like normal grass.
Ground covers for Salt Lake City’s USDA hardiness zones (4 – 5) include spotted deadnettle, creeping juniper, and creeping sedum (pictured).
8. Have a hardscape or two
For those who aren’t familiar with landscaping terminology, a hardscape is any landscape feature other than plants. That includes patios, retaining walls, pathways, pergolas, and other similar structures.
The big advantage of hardscapes: Hardscaping doesn’t involve grass or plants that need regular care. The most you will need to do to maintain a hardscape is clean it occasionally. If it’s made of wood, you may need to stain or paint it once every few years, but that’s still much less work than extra grass or plants would be.
An added bonus? Hardscapes can increase your property value and give you a nice space to spend time outdoors during warmer months.
9. Ditch the plants and raise a rock garden instead
A rock garden is a way to fill space in your landscape without adding more needy, thirsty plants. In a rock garden, the main focus is maintenance-free boulders, stones, and gravel instead. You can add some drought-tolerant, Salt Lake City-friendly plants as accent features if you want a touch of green, but that’s up to you.
Depending on how you design your rock garden, you can turn it into a relaxing space or a showy spectacular, just as you can grow a traditional garden in whatever style you like. The difference is you don’t have to stress about keeping a rock garden alive.
10. Mulch is a must
Adding a layer of mulch can shave hours off the time you spend maintaining the plants in your flower beds, lining your walk or in beds along the front of your home.
The benefits of mulch: Mulch smothers weeds and helps your plants retain moisture. That means your mulched garden won’t need weeding or frequent watering through dry spells.
Different kinds of mulch: Organic mulches like bark and wood chips break down into the soil and add nutrients, which means you’ll have to install new mulch each spring. Inorganic mulches like rocks and rubber mean less work for you since they last for years.
For added protection from weeds, you can install landscape fabric or a more eco-friendly weed barrier under your mulch. Weed barriers help the mulch suppress weeds more completely.
11. Plant plenty of perennials
Perennial plants are another must-have for your low-maintenance garden or flower bed. Unlike annuals, which are common in areas like Salt Lake City with drastic temperature changes from summer to winter, perennials come back year after year on their own. With a landscape full of perennials, you won’t have to plant new flowers every spring.
Many beautiful perennials are hardy enough to survive SLC’s winters and return with colorful blooms in spring. Local favorites include peonies (pictured), daylilies, and several species of columbine.
12. Get excited about evergreens
If you want trees in your landscape along with your flowers, consider your evergreen options. Evergreens keep their leaves year-round, so they will look good in the dead of winter and they will keep your yard from turning into a sea of fallen leaves in fall.
With evergreens, you can leave the rakes and leaf blowers in the shed.
Evergreen trees that thrive in Salt Lake City’s climate include the white fir (pictured) and several species of junipers and cypresses.
Aside from trees, there are also many evergreen shrubs, ground covers, and vines that won’t shed their leaves. That means less work for you and a landscape that looks lush and alive all year long.
FAQ About Low-Maintenance Landscaping in Salt Lake City
What are the most low-maintenance plants for Salt Lake City?
Drought-tolerant native plants will require the least maintenance in a Salt Lake City landscape. Remember, native plants have adapted to the local climate and don’t need as much care as non-natives. And drought-tolerant native species won’t need watering through SLC’s dry periods.
For more specific planting advice, check out this resource that helps you choose the best drought-tolerant plants for your property’s specific conditions (soil type, sun exposure, etc).
How can I get my front yard landscape cheap in Salt Lake City?
Several of the low-maintenance landscaping techniques detailed above will also help you save money since they use less water and won’t have you replacing plants every year. Many of them are also easy DIY projects, so you don’t necessarily have to spend extra money on a contractor. Our Tip: Rent a roll-off Same Day dumpster for landscaping debris to make clean-up a breeze!