Planting a Garden of Envy for Pennies

Have you ever admired someone's scenic garden and wished that you could be so lucky? You're probably thinking that if you had their money, yours could be just as beautiful.

But did you know that you CAN plant a garden masterpiece for pennies? There are ways of collecting your beautiful displays without paying the big bucks. With some initiative, a bit of planning and a little effort, your garden could be the next one to catch the envious eye.

1. Save the gift plants you're given on holidays like Mother's Day, birthdays or anniversaries, and plant them into your garden any time in the spring or summer. During the cold winter months, keep the plants protected by covering them with leaves that you rake up from your yard. If the plants have bulbs, plant them in the fall and watch what will come up in the spring.
2. When visiting friends or family, if they have plants that you like and that can be pruned, ask them for the cuttings the next time they prune them, and then take them home and get them planted. Check the internet for gardening sites and learn how to properly root your particular cutting. Make sure that your new plant is well established in a pot before transplanting it into the garden.
3. If you know of someone who has potted flowering plants and who you know will toss the plant when its flowers are finished, be bold and ask them if you could have it instead of them throwing it out. You can take the plant home, prune it down, re-pot it if necessary, give it some food and it's ready to go again. Plant it in your garden any time during the growing months and watch it come back to life.
4. Buy the picked over plants in the reduce section of your supermarket. You can often get these for very little money. Take them home and cut them back to the bare essentials and with proper food and care, they will spring back into luscious plants. Again, if they're bulb plants, you can plant the bulbs into the ground in the fall and wait for them in the spring.
5. If you already have some plants in your own garden, you can go online to a gardening site and learn how to multiply them so you can have more. Some plants such as lilac bushes produce sprouts all around that you can dig up and transplant right away into other preferred areas. Other plants can be rooted from cuttings.
6. Collect the seeds in the fall from your present flowers and save them to start up new plants in the spring. Plant these seeds into egg cartons to germinate. When the new shoots are big enough, transplant them into your garden during planting season.
7. Check the various garden centres near the close of each planting session for the different flowers and ask if they have any rejects that they can't sell, and if you could have them. For example, as the season for daffodils and tulips closes and the plants they have left on display are coming to an end, many centres will toss them out or sell them for pennies just to get rid of them.
8. If you belong to a social club, you could suggest trading excess bulbs, shoots and seeds with other members. With so much variety in garden selections, you could have more than you ever imagined.

It won't take long for you to have that garden that you used to admire in your neighbour's yard!