Any tips for gardening on a budget?

[TheBightyMoosh]

I've got a lovely sunny little garden (south facing) with a tiny patch of lawn and some borders. There are a few established plants, but quite a few blank patches in the borders, several empty pots, and a few broken / breaking trellises. I'd really like to spend a bit of time getting the garden looking nice this, but I've just come back off mat leave so I can't spend much money on it.

I'm quite a novice so probably not up to doing anything too advanced like cuttings, but could really do with some tips on credit crunch gardening. Any plants that are particularly good value? Any better/cheaper way of buying plants than going to a garden centre? etc

Thanks all so much.

Try looking at freecycle, I've seen people getting rid of extras on there when they've overplanted. Car boot sales are worth a look as well.

A lot of plants will take over come up really well year after year if you just scatter a few seeds over the ground. I've got verbena (purple flowers) everywhere from just shaking a deadhead over the garden.

Some plants do take cuttings very easily so don't be put off.

Seeds are generally cheaper than plants but a lot of mail order catalogues do plug plants (small ones which you grow on before planting out) and they work out quite cheap.

Good luck

Join your local horticultural society. They often have a trading hut, with gardening supplies at low prices, and plant sales.

Go to every school fete you can find - there's always a plant stall run by a green-fingered parent. Many of my garden plants came from fetes and bazaars and most cost £1 or less.

Small independent plant nurseries are usually much cheaper than garden centres, some sell on line too.
Agree its worth looking on Freecycle as people will often have spare plants when giving gardens a makeover, also asking any gardening friends/relatives if they can help with cuttings etc.
Good value plants IMO include hardy geraniums (they spread eaisly and flower for a long time), verbena (flower into November), Japanese anemones (also flower into autumn) and Penstemon which are easy to grow, more or less evergreen and flower for several months.

Brilliant tips - thank you all so much. I'll probably pop back here for some more help in the future

garden centres such as homebase often have reduced plants too - the main flowering may be over so they dont look so good, but of course, they will flower next year, so a bargain

other tips:

1. but evergreen plants so you have something lovely all year. ceonathus is my favourite. it has lovely blue flowers at this time of the year. that way you dont have to replace things such as bedding plants every year.

1. lavender also evergreen so a good choice

1. check what area of the garden you planting in eg is it sunny or shady - if the plant not happy it will die and need replacing

i love hardy geraniums and verbena too - they come up each year

scatter a packet of forget me nots around too - they are gorgeous and self seeding

if you have too many beds, grass them over?

church fetes usually have cheep plants, also choose things that will self seed year after year. poppies and other wild flowers are very pretty.
fucias, lavenda, crocosmia, kniphophia...... are all good plants.

if you go to b&q on a hot day or the day after they often forget to water the plants and they are reduced.

This was my favourite tip, it was from a book my friend had on budget gardening:

Eat your weeds.

car boots, definately!and school fetes in the summer, great plants, cheap as chips

If you want to get lots of plants, I found wallflowers worked really well from seed with no effort whatsoever. Also, grow them in egg boxes-it's free and they're easier to put on a window sill!

I buy a lot of plants from Ebay, I bought 9 plugs recently for under a tenner incl postage and they are all coming along nicely and i am a comlete novice !

Nasturtiums grow exceptionally fast, all you do is poke a little hole in the ground, chuck the seed in and water and you'll see growth in about a week. Cosmos, marigolds, runner beans etc grow really well from seed too.

I got a dozen well established sweet pea plants for 25p each from the car boot, and I bought a few wilted sad looking plants from a "bargain bucket" at a garden centre for about 30p each which came on in leaps and bounds once they were planted out and watered.

Ask people for cuttings or a seed head (In fact my gran never used to go to a national trust garden or even a garden centre without a little pair of clippers in her bag! bit naughty and I don't quite have her guts but I bet it did the plants no harm) For cuttings if you stick the cut end in a little pot of hormone rooting powder before planting it'll give it a boost and it almost always works.

And yes freecycle, I've just given away a load of plants I wasn't keen on.

nasturtiums are a great plant to grow from seed, really easy, really fast and take up loads of room.

fedup,whats freecycle?

Freecycle is an online gift giving network, where you can give away things you don't need any more that are too good for the tip, and recieve things you do need, all for free. It's a way of keeping things out of landfill. It's very popular these days! Well worth joining.

Here's a link to the website, I think you need to have an email account with yahoo.com to join. hth!

thankyou fedup, unfortunately you are right i need to be on yahoo and i am not, now i am fed up

I bought some plants yesterday from Instore (cheapy shop, bit like a posh Poundland ).

12 small fuschias for £1.99
12 hanging basket, patio pot plants £1.99

Actually, talking of Poundland they also sell spring and summer flowering bulbs , fruit bushes and also those bags of what looks like a dead bit of root in sand but IME have always grown really well once planted out.

gardeningmum, you can just join yahoo and then join. It's free and you've nothing to lose!

Aldi have been selling cheap bedding and hanging basket plants recently, and various other garden bits, mini greenhouses, compost etc. Ultra cheap seeds too, like 35p a pack.

thankyou fedup,just done it and joined my local group. cant wait to see what i can get!
thankyou

yes,i bought a mini greenhouse this year. its fab!! i've got tomato plants and done loads of other stuff from seed. i'm a complete novice also.

my local market has a plant stall....i go along most weeks and spend about £5-£10....he knows me now as i ask for advice,so he chucks in a few extra plants sometimes.

for beds that aren't used,i put wood chip over,then stick pots on top with plants in those. looks quite nice.