Thanks again for the kind words.
Both my pool and garden are "low maintenance" if either could ever be described as such.
Pool maintenance is just purging the bottom drain each week. I've a 40 gallon pump sump connected to the bottom drain by a 4" pipe. In it sit the filter pump at the top and the drain pump at the bottom. It's one of those big green water butts, set in concrete.
Placing a standpipe in the bottom of the sump, turning off the filter and then pumping the contents through a pipe to a house drain under the pool collar and patio means I can then remove the standpipe and the water pressure forces 40 gallons up into the sump from the bottom of the pool.
Inserting the standpipe again means all this crud can be pumped out again then the standpipe removed and the sump refilled via the bottom drain with relatively clean water.
It's a five minute job. Not like expensive modern filters. It's been working for over 30 years.
Here's the "science bit"
A pump sump prevents a lot of the coarse solids getting to the filter. As you can see not a lot of dritus gets dragged up from the sump, most sits on the bottom waiting to be pumped to waste.
The filter is very old fashioned but huge. It has eight bits of scaffolding poles supporting the trays under the top tanks. Four 40gall tanks stacked in pairs filled with flowcore and covered with a total of 12 sq feet of open cell foam through which the pool water is passed thrpogh spray bars two in each side . The second level of tanks also has spray bars to prevent tracking through the filter medium. This just needs a bit of a scrape with a wet n' dry vac every couple of years. This is the filter room in the back of my garage. The filter is covered with heavy duty bubblewrap for the winter.
You can see the UV sterilizer in the pipe to the header tank that distributes the water through four pipes to both sides of the filter. There's also a 1000 lph air pump. My water parameters are constantly boringly acceptable.
So I rarely bother to check them.
To the right is the filter for my 300 gall quarantine tank the corner of which you can just see in the bottom corner.
I run a 24/7 water trickle change through a dechlorinator. I can via valve, trickle change the water in the quarantine tank from a pipe from the header tank to its filter, so the water quality of both the pool and the tank can be kept the same.
This is the clarity of the filtered water returning to the pool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=bw8AIaa8t6I
As for the garden, we don't do bedding plants or hanging baskets. Just perenials.
The lawn edge has the hard surface of the path on the right and the left and individual features, are edged with block paving bricks. So the lawn just needs a quick wizz over with a Flymo. Beyond that it's just a bit of pruning and weeding. I'd rather play golf than send a lot of time gardening.
I've a Budweiser fridge on a table with castors, which can be rolled out on to the tea-house verandah.
When you're gardening, you need to take frequent breaks.
