Creating a Home Garden on a Budget

The first step to planting a successful garden is careful planning, and perhaps the most important part of planning is knowing about your soil and growing conditions. It is always advisable to buy the best quality plants that your budget will allow to ensure maximum growth and value for your money, but even the hardiest plants will wither under the wrong conditions.

Planning Your Garden

Depending on how extensive you garden project is, hiring a professional landscaper or garden designer to draw up plans for you could cost several hundred dollars and is not always an alternative when trying to stay within a budget. Studying garden design books and Cd`s from your local library is a good place to start. They contain valuable information on everything you need to know. If you can`t find exactly what you are looking for at the library, head to your local home improvement center. The staff in the garden department are usually quite knowledgeable and willing to give advice.

Friends, neighbors and family members who are gardeners themselves are also a wonderful resource. Don`t be afraid to ask for advice.

Buying Plants

Garden centers and nurseries are usually the most expensive place to buy plants and landscaping materials, but they offer a larger variety of high quality plants that will be less likely to wilt or die. Nurseries also offer substantial discounts on perennial flowers, shrubs and fruit trees in the off season. These reduced items probably will not bloom until the next growing season, but the savings are well worth it.

Roadside stands and garage sales are also great places to find perennial plant material. Avid gardeners frequently put up a stand to sell off the plants that they have thinned from their own gardens. This is an excellent opportunity to purchase many different varieties of plants and ground cover at incredible prices.

Budget Accessories

Commercially available garden accessories like gazing balls, statues and trellises enhance the appearance of any garden, but they can be costly. Instead of breaking your budget to buy accessories, use your imagination. An old spindle headboard or antique wooden ladder can become a trellis, and old bricks covered in vibrant paint colors make a whimsical garden border and wooden barrels, old wash tubs make rustic looking planters.

Garden Swapping

The best and most affordable way to build up a garden is to swap mature plants that can be thinned with your fellow gardeners. Many years ago I stopped while I was out walking, to admire some flowers that I saw growing in someone`s front garden. When the homeowner appeared to see what I was doing, I asked what they were. Not only did she tell me the name, but offered to dig me up a small bunch ( as well as some other varieties) to take home and plant in my own garden. Over the subsequent years I have dug up many pieces of that same little bunch of flowers to pass on to friends and family to enjoy.

Salvaging

No matter where you live or where you shop , you are always going to find a good deal here and there, but nothing beats free gardening materials. If there is a construction site near your home, don`t be shy about asking what they do with leftover materials. Many contractors will give excess materials such as bricks, soil or screening away rather than having to remove or dispose of them themselves when their job is finished.