If only there was such a thing. A garden that would open up obediently and swallow plants to the proper depth, and then quietly digests the pots and trays that remain. A garden with hoses that automatically retract into some hidden spot, ready to serve us when next called upon. Tools that we set down with finality would be wafted away on an invisible conveyor belt to their appointed storage places. A well-trained wind will sweep its way across the brick pavers in the main garden removing debris and depositing it in the compost heap. And I would learn to stop dropping Kleenex everywhere I walk.
But, this is all fantasy - and I will never be a neat person; it simply isn't in my genes. So I have learned to stack some of those plastic pots under a garden bench, handy in case I get garden visitors who want a little piece of this or that, try to keep the hose tidily coiled into its appointed pot, and develop a bad case of selective vision when it comes to other forms of clutter. My garden may never be self-cleaning - but I can at least make sure that some of the plants are. This cuts down on a lot of wear and tear for the gardener.
Exactly what is a self-cleaning plant? I divide them up three ways. There are those that create no litter in the first place and thus are always clean. Then there are those invaluable plants that do not need to be deadheaded but will continue to flower like mad. And then there are those that are semi-self-cleaning, asking for a mid-summer haircut, but little more.
The No-Litter Bunch Some ornamental grasses fit into this group, like 'Elijah Blue' fescue and hakonechloa - although I do have to cut the hakonechloa back in spring. But both have totally insignificant flowers, and so ask absolutely nothing from me during the growing season.
Non-invasive artemisias are valuable this way. My 'Silver Brocade' has never flowered - it just sits there looking silvery and mediating between other plants in the garden. Another great foliage plant is Rheum palmatum tanguticum - gorgeous, gigantic maple-shaped leaves of green with a burgundy backing It may send up a single flower, easily removed, but that is all the work it asks of me. All of these plants are perennial for me - so they are as close to "plant and forget" as you can get.
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