Low Maintenance Pool Landscape Design & Plants

Intricate landscaping can be nice, but it often takes a lot of upkeep. If you’re seeking a low maintenance pool landscape design, you may feel quite limited in terms of creativity.

Luckily, you don’t have to sacrifice style or your ideas when you are looking to create an outdoor space that requires little upkeep.

In this article, we will share our top tips for creating a low maintenance pool landscape by providing suggestions for plants, outdoor furniture, porch surfaces, and other design details.

Low Maintenance Landscaping Features

Plant Options

The best low maintenance pool landscaping plants have two main qualities: they do not have extensive, spreading root systems, and they do not drop heavy amounts of leaves or other debris.

Plants with either of these qualities typically increase both pool and landscaping maintenance.

Spreading root systems can cause an uneven yard and can also disturb the lay of your pool’s coping tiles. On the other hand, plants that shed their leaves often or produce short-lived flowers in the springtime can often drop lots of debris, increasing maintenance.

Some options that meet both of our requirements for low-maintenance plants include agave, cacti, succulents, mondo grass, kangaroo paw, golden cane palms, and banana trees.

Some other low maintenance plant options that do drop flowers or leaves include star jasmine, hibiscus trees, jade plants, lilly pilly, viburnum, and tropical frangipani. Although these may cause a small amount of mess, they are still popular options because they are easy to care for.

Potted plants also make a great option for pool landscaping because they can allow you to grow plants that you may otherwise avoid.

Potted plants can be moved when flowering to avoid getting falling debris in your pool, and the pot also restricts root systems from damaging your yard or garden beds.

If you just don’t have a green thumb, it’s worth mentioning that you could also use fake plants.

Although these tend to fade over time and would then need to be discarded, you could use artificial ivy or something similar to add pops of green to your pool area that you don’t have to remember to water.

Outdoor Furniture

The best low maintenance outdoor furniture is waterproof and rust-resistant. Some materials that meet these criteria are resin wicker, resin-treated wood, and high-density polyethylene. You may also choose metal furniture, but there are some things to keep in mind.

Although plenty of metals used to make outdoor furniture are rust-resistant, like stainless steel, wrought iron, and aluminium, metal furniture can become uncomfortably hot in the sunlight.

For this reason, we only recommend metal furniture for areas that receive at least partial shade. For poolside lounging or tanning, we suggest less heat-conductive options like wooden or plastic deck chairs.

You may also want to consider installing lighting options that are made of sun, water, and rust-resistant materials.

Outdoor Fabrics

Outdoor fabrics are used on cushions, shade sails, pool umbrellas, and more. We recommend opting for fabrics that are composed of UV-resistant materials, like acrylic, polyester, and nylon.

These fabrics are synthetic and their UV-resistance allows them to experience less degradation in the sunlight than other materials.

Outdoor cushions should be waterproof so that they do not harbour mould or mildew.

Occasionally, cushions can gather a pool of rainwater that will need to be drained off, or else they can become soiled. For the least amount of maintenance, we recommend bringing your cushions into a covered area during rain.

Coping And Flooring

When choosing a base for an outdoor seating area or patio, paving stones should be avoided. The gaps between pavers allow weeds to grow easily, and these would need to be removed regularly to keep your pool area looking nice.

The best low maintenance patio surface is concrete. You can get simple, brushed concrete as a porch surface, but there are also more design-friendly concrete options available, such as liquid limestone, honed aggregate, and exposed aggregate concrete.

Both exposed and honed aggregate concrete are available in a surprisingly wide array of colours. Regardless of your choice of concrete, all seamless concrete patios will be weed resistant.

Design Details

There are plenty of other pool landscaping design features that are low maintenance. Most of these features are semi-permanent, aesthetic structures that require no upkeep.

One of our top choices for low-maintenance design features is rock gardens. Rock gardens are highly customizable and can be adapted to fit many landscaping themes. If traditional stones aren’t your style, think outside of the box a bit.

You could use marble stones in your rock garden for a sleek and clean feel. Rock gardens can also contain colourful elements, such as coloured glass marbles or smooth pieces of sea glass.

Similarly, mosaic or tiled inlaid elements surrounding your pool can add a nice design element that requires essentially no upkeep.

Conclusion

There are a variety of low maintenance pool landscape design options for you to choose from to fit any aesthetic you may be going for. While plenty of options exist, it’s important to remember that it’s also fine to keep your pool’s landscaping design fairly simple if that’s what you’d prefer.

Do you have any questions about low maintenance pool landscape design ideas? Get in touch with us in the comments, we’ll try our best to help you out!