CREATING a beautiful garden, with plenty of colour and interest all year round can be hard work.

But with careful planning and design, you can enjoy a glorious and constantly changing low-maintenance garden all year round.

The secret to a 'low maintenance' garden is to be cunning with your design.

Avoid labour-intensive features and above all, make your plants do most of the work for you.

l Make sure garden surfaces are easily maintained and weed-free - paving or concrete is easier to look after than gravel or grass. Paving is attractive and is easy to sweep and clean. If you can't live without your lawn, consider reducing its size.

l Minimise the area of open flower beds, especially those which require regular replanting.

l Respect your soil. Pressure from passing feet spoils structure and necessitates deep digging but if soil is never trodden on, it need never be dug! Design borders or develop pathways so that all parts of the garden can be reached without having to tread on soil.

Think carefully about your plant selection.

Make your plants do the work. Selecting the right varieties can save hours of hard work: free-seeding annuals, self-clinging climbers and perennials that survive for years withoutbeing divided are all good examples

l Avoid pest or disease-prone plants. Healthy plants packed with natural resistance will save you lots of time in the long run.

l Pruning can be a time-consuming chore, especially with rapidly growing plants such as hybrid tea roses. Go for non-pruning alternatives such as Japanese Azaleas or Lavenders that only need pruning once a year.

l Choose plants that do not need support or training. Low maintenance plants will either be short enough to stand free, or if tall will have sturdy enough stems to withstand windy conditions.

l Steer clear of invasive plants - if you are worried about a new plant, grow it in a container for its first season and see how it does. If you find you don't like it, you'll find it easier to discard the container than to eradicate troublesome roots from your soil.

l Go for hardiness; plants that you know will survive winter in your area without extra protection are ideal.

l Pick plants that will self-seed or spread. You won't want to replant every year, so tender annuals or bedding plants are out, but give room to self-replicating annuals and biennials.

Developing the best planting scheme.

Having carefully selected your plants you should also invest a little time deciding where to grow them and how to arrange them.

l Create a strong outline - give your planting some permanent background with shrubs or small trees such as Dwarf conifers or Mexican orange blossom.

l Once your outline is assembled, begin to fill up the space between the shrubs with ground cover plants - mix seasonal plants among evergreens to create a colourful contrast. Bring borders to a finish with low, mat-forming plants along their fronts such as creeping bugle.

l Include a dramatic flourish - bulbs such as tulips and lilies can be planted amongst the ground cover, and will pop up year after year. Plant a vivid Rhododendron perhaps for early summer or a big mop-head Hydrangea to carry some colour from late summer to autumn.

Finishing Touches.

Although your garden will be labour saving ultimately, it is important not to take short cuts when preparing the site. Extra effort at the beginning will save you days of backbreaking work later on. Make sure your soil is absolutely weed-free before you begin to plant. Build up fertility and increase the soil's organic matter before you plant by digging in plenty of compost.