Gardening in the Golden Years

Advice from Susie Davis, owner of Katie's Garden Plant Centre
A version of this article appeared in the East Anglian Daily Times, 29th April 2026

"The love of gardening often increases in later life, and it’s natural to look forward to retirement and extra time to spend tending your plot. But for many gardeners, it is also time to be realistic about the physical effort required – at the nursery, we are often asked to advise on achieving a low-maintenance, future-proofed garden. If you need to make your current garden easier to manage, make sure you focus on
what’s important to you, and consider both structure and planting.

If you hate mowing the lawn, could you invest in more hard landscaping, or a cobbled garden with Mediterranean shrubs such as Cistus, Phlomis and Lavender? Or try raising the cutting height just one notch – this will reduce the workload AND allow the grasses more resilience against drought.

Raised beds can be a game-changer for bad backs and sore knees. Think carefully about where these are positioned – ideally somewhere you will regularly potter about, close to a water source and some seating, in sunshine or good light. Height is important – don’t skimp: you really want to be standing up with your trowel! Then fill with a good quality topsoil and plenty of organic matter.

High-maintenance hedges could be replaced with slower-growing varieties such as Ilex crenata or Euonymus ‘Jean Hughes’.

A cottagey herbaceous border can be very labour-intensive – could you transform that to a border of low-maintenance shrubs? We’re not talking car-park evergreens here – there’s a whole A-Z of well-known and less common species to collect, with something in flower all year round.

Add a carpet of ground-cover perennials to reduce weeds, and a thick mulch of organic matter to conserve moisture, then sit back and enjoy – after switching on the water-conserving Porous Pipe system. Bring the countryside into your garden with naturalistic, wild-life focussed planting –and resist the urge to ‘tidy it up’! Even a small garden can host a well-chosen bird-friendly tree, potentially with coloured foliage, spring blossom and autumn fruit on one plant – consider Malus, Prunus and Sorbus varieties.

For some, change will mean a move to a smaller garden, perhaps even just a small courtyard or patio. This can initially feel very limiting, but you will be surprised how many plants you can shoehorn in!

If you are moving to container gardening rather than generous borders, upgrade to the biggest pots you can afford with proper pot feet or individual wheeled bases. You will be able to create interesting mixed displays for a more natural look, and watering will be much easier – plus the larger rootzone gives better protection from frost.

Make every plant earn its keep. Spring and winter-flowering shrubs often have delicious scent (Sarcococca, Edgeworthia); herbs offer contrasted foliage, bee-friendly flowers and garnish for the kitchen; among the annuals, Cosmos and Dahlias are prolific enough to provide a few blooms for a posy. Grow-your-own is usually considered very labour-intensive, but there are satisfying shortcuts – try ‘Tumbling Tom’ tomatoes in a pot; red-flowered everbearer strawberry ‘Ruby Ann’; ‘Super Snack’ peppers adding red and yellow to your raised beds; cut-and-come-again salad leaf in a slightly shaded corner.
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Some of the best hardy perennials will bloom continuously from June to October –try Erysimum, Gauras, Salvias and Erigeron in pots as well as borders. For early spring colour, you can divert the focus to ‘lasagne’-planted bulbs – one pot filled with layers of different species for longer flowering (I like early Crocus, mid-season Muscari, and tulips to finish).

"Some of the loveliest gardens I know seem to be achieved with remarkably low effort. The key must be to retain the elements YOU love, so that you are encouraged and inspired to get out there, little and often, before a task becomes a chore. In that way, you’ll get all the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening without physical strain.
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And remember, gardening can be a social activity too – share the deadheading, share the picnic on the patio, share the love of plants!"