Try Slow Gardening for Unexpected Benefits: A Relaxed, Sustainable Approach

Are you a bit of a hippie in your garden? Relaxed, laid-back, rarely cutting the lawn while growing a few organic veggies? You might not be a '60s throwback but a follower of the Slow Gardening movement.

Inspired by the Slow Food movement (Carlo Petrini, 1980s), Slow Gardening was started by American horticulturalist Felder Rushing. At its core, it's about self-awareness, personal responsibility, and environmental awareness — an attitude, not a checklist.

Slow Gardening is what most gardeners aim for: a relaxing pastime working with seasons and local environment. Let's explore its main principles — propagating your own plants, using microclimate-suited plants, conserving water, composting, and design details like growing hedges and leaving grassy areas natural for wildlife — to achieve its ideals in our own gardens.

In & Out Design

1. The Pleasure Is in the Process

Once we envision our dream garden, we can become impatient. Money can buy large specimen plants for instant results, but that's not the Slow Gardening way. The pleasure is enjoying the process as much as the result. Perennials and ornamental grasses are easy to grow from seed or cuttings — though it takes longer. By growing your own, you understand their needs and gain real ownership. Shrubs are harder from seed, but small starter plants achieve desired size over time. The real pleasure is waiting and appreciating each growth stage.

2. Choose Plants That Will Thrive in Your Garden

When designing with Slow Gardening principles, what and where you plant is paramount. Growing plants suited to your garden's microclimate means less work, feeding, and watering for best results. Plants naturally thrive when planted in conditions matching their natural habitat.

Regional garden guides on Houzz

Calico Studio

3. Water Conservation Can Be Stylish

With changing climate, water conservation is vital, especially in gardening. A thrifty water approach is a Slow Gardener's kingpin. Water butts and rainwater storage tanks should be integral, collecting rain for the growing season. Today's stylish, interesting containers can become design features — no more unsightly green plastic barrels.

Matt Kilburn

4. Invest in DIY Soil Improvement

Conserving water also means ensuring soil retains moisture. Best achieved by adding organic matter: farmyard manure, leaf mold, or the Slow Gardener's favorite, compost. No mystery to making compost, but it takes time and technique. Easy to buy chemical fertilizer for instant results, but Slow Gardening is about patience — not hurrying nature but helping it. Compost improves soil over time; the result is worth the wait.

Aloe Designs

5. Grow the Slow Alternative to Fast Food

Growing your own food and helping the environment doesn't require an allotment; even a few pots suffice. Build smaller, manageable growing spaces for seasonal crops. "Cut and come again" salad plants (rocket, lettuce, radicchio, endive) are perfect for pots, almost maintenance-free. Growing tomatoes like Tumbler or Tumbling Tom in a hanging basket is the essence of vegetable Slow Gardening.

Shades Of Green Landscape Architecture

6. Leave the Mower in the Shed

A close-cropped emerald lawn has been central to traditional gardens (now replicated with artificial grass). Perfect lawns take time, energy, fertilizer, water — all against Slow Gardening. Letting grass grow longer or including longer grass in design saves resources while creating habitat for beneficial insects that aid pollination.

Lynn Gaffney Architect, PLLC

7. Create a Natural Home for Your Garden's Wildlife

Slow-growing hedges, especially native varieties, give even small gardens shelter and food for birds and insects. The last thing a Slow Gardener needs is topiary or fast-growing hedges requiring time-consuming clipping.

Kathleen Shaeffer Design, Exterior Spaces

Maybe this is your image of slow gardening — a quiet place to sit in the sun without caring about uncut lawn or deadheading.

Above all, there are no hard rules. Your garden should suit your lifestyle and environment, allowing you to relax, take your time, and follow seasonal rhythms. Perhaps the hippies had the right idea all along.