Three Low-Maintenance Landscaping Trees Perfect for Busy Homeowners

If you're like the majority of modern homeowners, you sometimes experience a conflict between wanting to have a nice yard and garden area and wanting to spend your leisure time doing something other than yard work. You probably also know people whose entire weekends are taken up by landscape maintenance chores and have no desire to replicate their lifestyle. However, you don't have to make a choice between having a drab, lackluster outdoor living space and spending your evenings and weekends babying along fussy trees and shrubs.

Fortunately, there is a wide variety of trees and shrubs that perform admirably under adverse conditions and even thrive when neglected. Here are three tree and shrub species you can count on to look great and won't take up your leisure time with maintenance. 

Japanese Barberry

Japanese barberry is a shrub that grows to about waist height and can be used either as a specimen plant or as a hedge. Some people find it particularly useful when planted in rows along their property lines because the sharp thorns on both its leaves and stems tend to discourage casual intruders. It's not fussy about soil, requires no extra fertilizing, and handles drought situations well. Some varieties of Japanese barberry have the added benefit of turning a gorgeous scarlet color in the fall. 

Vine Maple

Vine Maple is an overlooked member of the maple species that can basically be planted and left alone. It features deep green leaves in summer and offers a yellow and red foliage display in autumn. Because it's a relatively small tree compared to other maples, which may attain over 15 feet in height, vine maples are ideal for smaller yards. The average vine maple generally doesn't reach more than 20 feet at the height of its maturity. Vine maples also thrive in regular soil and aren't susceptible to very many pests and pathogens. 

Crape Myrtle

The showy appearance of crape myrtle leads many homeowners to erroneously believe that it's a tree that is difficult to grow because it requires expert-level knowledge and a serious time commitment in order to thrive, but nothing could be further from the truth. Crape myrtles put on a stunning show of flowers in midsummer after most other tree varieties have already bloomed, and they do so even during a drought and when planted in poor soils. They're also known for being particularly unpalatable to deer, making them an excellent choice for homeowners who live in areas where deer pose a persistent threat to their landscaping trees. 

For more information about different trees that you could plant in your yard, call a landscape maintenance service.

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