Thrifty Garden Shopping

The dirty secret about gardening is, it's expensive. Ever think you'd pay for manure?!

Before you overspend on astilbes, here are some quick store-by-store tips on what to buy, where - and sometimes even when. From garden center to big box, asters to shovels, consider these tips and share your own.

First, two general rules of green thumb. Bring a digital camera as you pre-shop to decide exactly what you want, where, and compare prices - way easier than a notepad. Then, be patient – very-end-of-season makes perennials, pots and furniture a steal.

Fancy Specialty Garden Center

For major buys, like trees, due to their guarantees.

Window shop here to leverage the great service and advice, gratis.

Splurge on hard-to-find plants and pots, especially perennials.

Skip the rock and pavers here – overpriced.

Neighborhood Nursery

Older, smaller, unsexier nurseries are great for mulch and standard plants, like geraniums.

The Big Box

Standard plants, pots and mulch on sale

Otherwise unexciting pot or container en masse for affordable impact

Check it: Martha Stewart for Kmart

Farmer’s Markets

Great for plants. Shop closing time for best bargaining power.

The Estate Sale

Shovels, shears, pots and other staples

Other

Anything can be a container if you drill a hole in the bottom

School and charity sales are great for annuals

Plants are tough – fearlessly divide, move and take from friends

Comments (6)

Buy smaller plants (2-4 inch pot rather than a 6 inch pot of gallon container). It will quickly grow to the size of the larger plant and be heathier and cheaper too.

If you re-use pots or buy old ones at a flea market, be sure to disinfect them before replanting. It's easy to infect a new plant with an old fungus or bacteria living in an old pot.

Also, check out your local arboretum for sales. You can find some great unusual plants there "dirt" cheap. Same goes for local garden clubs.

Focus on growing perennials (ones you can keep alive, obviously) or self-seeding annuals. Grow plants you don't have to fight with in your area so you don't have to buy a lot of fertilizers or pesticides.

Learn to propagate. Take cuttings, save seeds, divide. A web search on the plant you want to multiply should tell you how. Some are fairly difficult but many are as easy as sticking a cutting in water. Then, once you have surplus, find someone to trade with. GardenWeb.com hosts a bunch of trader's forums, including many that organize annual swap meets. Many people also trade by mail.

Compost. Scrap the fertilizers. (Pun intended.)

If you only have a few plants, a few goldfish will provide you with organic fertilizer for low cost.

Try growing from seed. Smith & Hawken a while back was selling hollyhocks for ten bucks a plant. Mine were grown from a $2.50 packet of seeds.

Focus on growing perennials (ones you can keep alive, obviously) or self-seeding annuals.

Self seeding annuals and perennials that self seed, sucker or otherwise self spread often go invasive. Not always, but it is something to watch out for. It's a good idea to check your state's invasive list so you know what not to get. Often, a cultivated variety is safe to grow, but the unimproved species is not. So if a much loved favorite shows up on the list, *ask*.

Often, it's worth looking for things like self-seeding natives.

Another thing to watch out for is idiotic plant labels. Many many many native dogwoods are labeled as "grow in full sun". Full sun means "has sun exposure for all of sunburn prime time". Raspberries are often labeled this way too. Both are actually forest edge plants, so their natural growth habit is somewhat shady, and they pretty much never are exposed to sun during all of sunburn prime time. When they do get it, they're tiny and sad plants. Check out your plants carefully to make sure the label isn't lying to you. Then you won't waste money on plants that don't thrive.

(raspberry *spreads* by the way... treat with caution if you're in a congenial enviroment)

(a native dogwood is *not* native to all of the US... it's primarily a mid-Atlantic native. if there is temperate forest nearby, there will often be dogwood at the edges. if there are no wild dogwoods, it may not be well suited to your area.)