To buy or to sow?

[NoToLandfill]

I'm planting out my new garden, it's about 5m by 5m. It is going to be so expensive to buy plants, was thinking of changing to seeds & bulbs instead. But I've got no greenhouse. Do I just plant the seeds & hope they germinate? Just don't want it to look shit! But spend thousands on the plants.
Anyone got any advice?

5m x 5m is tiny. It wont cost thousands if you lay it out right and use the right big plants. I just finished 22m x 2.3m and used 130 plants.

Ah thanks that sounds good. So you spent about £1000 on the plants? Did you leave much space between them? I'm wanting to have plants closer together so weeds don't stand a chance! Not sure if this is going to work though

Is that 5 x5 the finished area for plants?
You need to break it up with bamboo canes laid flat on soil into 4 x squares then do two schemes and reverse the planting- understandable? So treat each sq as a seperate bed using two different plant mixes
Where does it face- sun up and down?
I can suggest plants if you want.

If you want some inexpensive bundles, suttons.co.uk often have bundles of plug plants around now, so they're already germinated but small.

I'd wait until into May/past the frosts though

Are you having one "big border" 5m by 5m? No path etc? Any fences or walls around any of the boundaries?

I'd spend some money on the big things, trees, shrubs etc - if you want impact from day one you'll have to buy bigger, older, more expensive specimens.

Yes it's a whole 6 by 5m just for flowers. A small wildlife pond is at one end. We are in clay soil, but putting down compost soil mix. South facing. I like the idea of making a grid, I'm finding it at bit overwhelming at the moment!

Thanks for the plug plants idea, that a great middle ground I hadn't thought of that.

Morrisons as the most amazingly cheap perennials so I assume other supermarkets do too, and Wilkos too. Use the pots from these to pot on one of those 40 perennials for £5.99 gardeners world offers and you’ll have more than enough.

Roses love clay and are actually quite easy to care for, you could get a couple of shrubs that will eventually take up a lot of space.

Break into grids. Buy a few theme plants that offer structure
Phyllostachys vivax aureocaulis
Pittospirum Irene Pattison
Euphorbia x pasteurii
Euphorbia wulfenii

Then use fillers-
Astelia westland
Astelia chatamica
Miscanthus kleine silberspinne

Then colour
Penstemon garnet
Persicaria orangefields
Rudbeckia fulgida
Helenium Sahins Early flowerer

Etc

I assume you aren't wanting a veg garden but flowers and shrubs instead? There was a programme on lastnight saying how supermarket plants are so much cheaper than nurseries. Obviously not the range or specialty plants, but for general flowers and shrubs they are great.

Lidl, aldi, asda, tesco etc always have various plants for sale at reasonable prices.I got various tulip, daffodil and dahlia bulbs last year from lidl for I think £1.74 a pack and the spring display is stunning now.

Ask on next.com or olio if anyone local to you have seedlings or shrub cuttings for sale. Sometimes local boot fayres have plants for sale at a reasonable price too.

Tbh, I’ve done most of our gardens in ready grown plants rather than seeds and it’s taken years to look anywhere near finished.

My gardens are not huge by any stretch and I’ve definitely spent thousands on plants...

I have used seeds before, indeed I have some flower seeds now that I need to get round to sowing but honestly, I hate seeds.
I find it really annoying faffing around with the tiny things, having to cover them over, waiting for weeks sometimes for them to germinate, thinning them, watching them get eaten by slugs a lot of the time as they are so vulnerable and/or drying out to crisps due to me not remembering to water them.

Ready grown plants are much better.
I get a lot from Morrisons and Aldi and pound shops like Poundland and B&M

If you don't have any fences or walls you might want to think about having pyramids here and there to give you some height, points of interest. Doesn't have to be expensive, bamboo poles work and then a couple of supermarket clematis or roses grown up will break it up. I would try and put a few shrubs in there, just to give you something to look at in the winter when most flowers aren't much to look at.

I buy plug plants from eBay - I've never been too successful with T&M in terms of number of plugs that survive their posting

I've got a newbuild garden so I'm in a similar position to you. I spent about £70 on bulbs in the autumn and my garden looks lovely now. This year I've planted six bare root roses, a pearl bush and a crab apple tree. I planted a hydrangea last year. I'm growing dahlias (about £25 for 6 tubers but you can get cheaper ones) and nasturtiums, cosmos and sweetpeas to inexpensively fill some gaps. I've chucked some nigella, poppy and Californian poppy seeds down in a 1mx1m patch. Unless you want to spend a lot of money I think it's hard to do it all in one go. This year I'm trying to focus on adding some evergreens and more shrubs then bringing colour and flowers through annuals.

Put in stepping stones so you can reach every bit of the bed, and it will give you a bit of structure to work round.

I would plan to buy a few things this year. Roses, some lavender and a couple of evergreen foliage plants, eg thyme, rosemary Put them in to make the bones of the bed. A lovely plant for the back of the bed is Coronilla citrina glauca. It flowers at this time of year but us evergreen all year.

At the same time, sow some easy seeds in pots or trays to fill the gaps - marigold, nigella, sweet peas, nasturtiums, cornflowers and sunflowers. You can gradually replace these plants with permanent planting in future years to spread the cost. Also you can make mistakes and experiment knowing this planting isn't permanent.

Use a compost mulch between the plants to keep weeds down. You will need to improve the soil for a few years in the average new build garden.

When your seeds finish in the autumn, it will be time to plant bulbs 🙂

Make friends with a gardener they will probably give you plants for free from their garden.

For future reference. Find out where your local garden centre hides its reduced plants. It’s a good place to pick up reduced herbaceous plants that just need a bit of tlc to come back to life for next year - be careful you don’t buy annuals though because they won’t come back. So for example at this time of year you might get bargain hellebores because they are at the end of their season, also pots of bulbs that you can plant out in the garden to flower next spring ( don’t take off the leaves, let them die back naturally) better pickings happen in the autumn when summer flowering herbaceous plants are sold off, either plant them out as they are or keep them somewhere safe over winter then divide the plant in the spring so you have extra plants for your money. Look for pots where the flower has gone over ( ie finished flowering) but the leaves still look healthy.

School summer fairs and church fetes often have plant stalls, get there early or all that will be left are spider plants and straggling tomato seedlings.

I'd also have a look on your local Facebook marketplace. Mine always seems to have people wiping out their garden and offering shrubs and plants either free if you dig them out, or very cheap.

If you are having a wildlife pond, it suggests an informal style. But you still need some structure.This year, buy a native shrub or small tree like a spindle tree(euonymus), or crabapple, some smaller evergreens like lavender and rosemary, and also plant vertically on the fences, maybe honeysuckle and jasmine I would buy a couple of grasses, maybe a miscanthus, or Molinia. Then choose nectar rich flowers and grasses. Some are really easy from seed, I would buy packets of forget me nots, cosmos, marigolds,poppies, nigella and sunflowers, and broadcast. They will then always self seed. There is a lovely annual grass called Briza media which is easy from seed . The, add perennial flowers as you can afford them. Good ones are campanula, monarda, asters and daisies. Bulbs are always a good idea.

Have you got a photo and are you planning on planting up the whole space in one huge plant buying session? Do you know what it is you want? Trees, lawn fruit trees, shrubs, fruit bushes, ornamentals, annuals, perennials, biennials? Do you have kids to consider? Animals? A place to sit? To eat?

@NoToLandfill

Yes it's a whole 6 by 5m just for flowers. A small wildlife pond is at one end. We are in clay soil, but putting down compost soil mix. South facing. I like the idea of making a grid, I'm finding it at bit overwhelming at the moment!

Thanks for the plug plants idea, that a great middle ground I hadn't thought of that.

Plugs still need growing on and protection though