Tips On Saving In Your Garden
With gardening season just around the corner, here are a few ideas to create a beautiful garden without spending a fortune
1. Grow Plants From Cuttings - A large number of plants can be grown from cuttings, which means you can have a whole new plant for free just by snipping off a piece of an already grown plant. Some easy plants to start with include mint, red valerian, hydrangea, pincushion, geraniums and scented geraniums.
2. Learn To Divide Plants - Plants such as mums and candytuft (or find a friend who has plants like this) and be divided and grown. This way, you get more plants from your original plant, and you keep your plants from becoming overgrown. Plants like daylilies, society garlic and agapanthus are great for dividing.
3. Use Volunteer Plants - Learn to spot plants that "volunteer" themselves in places that you don't want them. Volunteering means the plants grow in new places all on their own, without being planted there. You can dig them up and transplant them to a more desirable location. Raspberries are great at volunteering, so if you can find someone with berries you can dig up the volunteers from their garden (with permission, of course) and plant them in your own garden.
4. Grow Plants From Seed - Seed packets are cheap and most come with a lot of seeds in them, so you can potentially get quite a few plants for a very small price. Also, you can let your plants go to seed and then gather those seeds to plant later on. Easy seeds to collect include parsley, hollyhock, stock and coriander (cilantro).
5. Purchase Small Plants - Opt for smaller sizes when buying plants in pots at the nursery. The smaller sized plants will soon catch up to the larger ones - in a matter of weeks, sometimes. A little patience can go a long way.
6. Go Native - Know your area and avoid plants that won't thrive there. Look around to see what plants show up time and time again in landscapes. Ask the people at the nursery for advice if you're not sure whether or not a certain plant will work in the area you have in mind. Just because a plant looks great in the store doesn't mean it will look great at home. When in doubt, ask.
Comments
[...] Tips on saving in your garden. (Sound Money Tips — also featured in Money!) [...]
Thanks for all your great gardening tips.I'm raring to go with my vegetable garden this year.However,i'm not particularly pleased with the selection of seeds readily available in my area.Does anyone have any good online sources of vegetable seeds?