For many retirees, gardening is a relaxing hobby that offers gorgeous rewards – but getting your flower beds beautiful isn’t always an easy task.
Sweeping, digging and watering are par for the course, and this can put a lot of strain on the joints. Bad backs, stiff knees; nobody wants them, but they’re all too common as a result of gardening – and they take their toll with age.
Luckily, with a few age-related modifications, you can make working in your garden as comfortable as possible. Read on for our top tips.
1. Raised flower beds and vertical planters
A gorgeous garden replete with vibrant foxgloves and bold begonias never fails to impress. But as any green-fingered retiree knows, you’ll be doing a lot of bending and kneeling to keep them looking their best.
Rather than dealing with aching limbs, just raise your flower beds with either plant pots or wooden sleepers. Wooden sleepers are particularly helpful for bringing flower beds to a comfortable height – and they help to draw more attention to the kaleidoscopic colours of your garden.
As an extra benefit, raised beds also improve drainage and soil quality of your flower beds. This means less manual labour to keep your flora looking fantastic.
If you’d rather eradicate bending altogether, consider turning your flower beds on their side with a vertical planter. These are best for fast-growing vegetation, like vegetable plants and ivy. Alternatively, pole planters and trellises work just as well.
2. Low-maintenance paving
From regular summer mowing to raking, trimming and feeding, a lot of work goes into crafting an award-winning lawn.
To help yourself achieve an impressive back garden with half the effort, consider replacing your lawn with a patio. Some of the money from an equity release lifetime mortgage could help with buying new pavers along with other low-maintenance foundations like gravel or stones. It could even help cover the cost of installation, too.
As for ease of use, a patio requires a simple annual clean with a pressure washer, so there’s no bending or twisting involved. Plus, a patio guarantees a level surface for walking on, minimising the risk of falling.
Similarly, coloured paving stones in different colours are useful for those with poor eyesight, while textured pavers reduce the slip risk during wet conditions. You can even install spotlights along the edge of your patio to make your space more visible when the day draws to a close.
3. Comfortable gardening tools
Ergonomic gardening tools may feel unnecessary at first – especially if they are more expensive – but they’re imperative if you want to limit aches and pains.
Where possible, use lightweight tools for easy handling and avoid power tools; manual options are far safer, even if using them means your gardening project takes slightly longer. You could also modify your gardening tools by adding a lining of foam, tape or plastic tubing to the handles to offer a more comfortable grip.
To find out more about how you can release equity to fund your gardening ambitions, contact the Equity Release Supermarket team on Freephone 0800 802 1051 or email today.
