No Budget? No Problem!

Big is Beautiful
Select a few key plants that fill up a lot of space all on their own e.g. a 5g smoke bush will easily grow 6-8’ tall and wide by the end of one season and can be either trimmed to maintain that size or allowed to get even bigger. Larger varieties of Hostas, Rodgersia, and Gunnera (Dinosaur food) all create the same affect and become a powerful focal point.

Be thrifty not trendy.
Every year new varieties are available – at a cost. While the latest and greatest are fun to try, stick to the older tried and true varieties that are cheaper and have been thoroughly tested by your less budget conscious friends! In another two years those ‘must have’ spotted, flamingo pink marigolds will either have shown themselves incapable of surviving our erratic weather or will have thrived at someone else’s expense and come down in price!

Plants on wheels! (cheap container tricks)
I have a hidden area of garden that I use as a holding bed for spare plants. In summer I like to treat myself to the colorful seasonal trailers especially Ipomoea (sweet potato vine) and Verbena. However rather than throw out those plants such as Vinca that I use in winter, I add them to my holding bed for summer, then bring them back again for the fall planting.

Likewise there are areas of my garden I don’t venture into during the winter, so pulling out a couple of evergreen ferns or Heuchera for my winter container designs saves me money, yet these perennials can easily be transferred back to the main garden before anyone notices!

Need something for height in those containers? Hunt around the garden for interesting twigs and just push them into the soil. Or sacrifice a few curly willow twigs that you have in your home as decoration. Great texture and costs nothing.

Tropical indoor plants such as Bromeliads make a wonderful splash of color in shady containers during the warmer months; simply move them from your living room to your patio and back again as seasons dictate.

Restrain yourself; just because you plant 20 pots in the summer doesn’t mean you have to plant them all for the winter! Focus on those by the front door and that you see on a daily basis. Out of sight, out of mind for the others.

Free or (almost)
Buy seeds for those hard to find, high impact plants such as the annual Ricin ‘Carmencita’ (castor bean plant ); a wonderful tropical looking plant which germinates quickly on a warm windowsill yet grows 5’ tall in a season. (This is a highly toxic plant however so avoid it if you have young children or animals that eat everything in sight). Cosmos is another really easy annual to grow from seed and at just a couple of dollars for a dozen plants you can’t go wrong.

Garden recycling; save your Canna and Dahlia tubers for next year. I like to use the dark leaved Bishop of Llandaff Dahlias and many of the brightly colored Cannas in my container designs but they’re not cheap. In September I lift and store the dried tubers in either sawdust or Vermiculite then repot them in February for the next season. Not only do you keep the original plants, but you’ll get more each year.

Divide and conquer; split perennials such as Campanula (bellflower) and hardy Geraniums to add to other areas of your garden. The popular black mondo grass grows by putting out runners with new plants at the end which can be separated with a sharp knife. Or take cuttings of plants such as Lavender. Simply place a 4" piece of a non-flowering stem into a spare pot in August and you will soon have a new plant to add to the garden; a $10 value for free. My kind of price.

Finally, exchange plants and seedlings with your thrifty neighbors. You’ll increase your plant palette, make new friends and create a garden as lush and interesting as any on the block – but for far less money.

Photos include: Canna ‘King Humbert’ and Ricin ‘Carmencita’, Campanula persicifolia, Bromeliads, Lavender.

4/09