Defining maintenance criteria requires great planning effort, as well as technical knowledge, experience and a significant dose of imagination to think about how the space may evolve in the future. But this does not mean that the importance of this aspect can be undervalued when facing the beginning of a new project.
In this sense, one must also take into account a situation that, unfortunately, commonly occurs. In cases where project solutions are debated and formal and design aspects come into play against other more practical aspects such as the subsequent conservation of the place, it is common for the knowledge of professionals with vast experience in the conservation of green spaces to be undervalued or ignored. And if an inadequate design in a practical sense is combined with lack of planning and scarce allocation of resources for maintenance, it will imply the failure of this space in the medium term.
Despite the above, when talking with a client about what maintenance would be necessary to properly preserve a garden, a certain aversion usually appears in the conversation. It can be understood that needing, to a greater or lesser extent, the services of a gardener, with the dedication that the space requires, has become a not inconsiderable expense that, a priori, not even the most solvent owners are willing to assume to the degree that would be considered not optimal but necessary or essential.
For this reason it is very necessary for professionals to claim and raise awareness among their clients on this issue, with the benefits and value it brings to the place.
In our country, where due to the type of cities we live in, the proportion of people who choose to have a house with a garden is relatively small, it is striking that, normally, ahead of having a pleasant and beautiful place, the revaluation of the property, the opportunities offered by an outdoor space in the house and a long etcetera, the main concern when conceiving this space is that maintenance be minimal. When landscape projects that have been conceived to achieve a space with minimum maintenance as the only goal, are spaces that are not characterized by their beauty or their dynamism and that in the long run end up being uniform and boring.
With these precedents, it would be worth seriously considering the vindication of gardening and mainly of the figure of the gardener as a qualified and competent professional, capable of preserving, enhancing and adding value to a green space. Just as designers have to insist that maintenance is the best way to preserve and make profitable the investment that the client has made in their garden.
Finally, emphasis should be placed on species selection. Plants adapted to the environment and cultivated in the nursery under conditions similar to those they will find later once located in their final location represent another key element in this aspect. These will be plants that will have easy and rapid adaptation in the garden and simple and inexpensive management, without having to give up a wide variety of species with high ornamental value.