View full sizeDivide lavender and other plants, and spread them around to increase the number of flowers around your house at no extra cost.
We all love to beautify our homes with annuals and perennials, or grow fresh vegetables for delicious meals, but gardening can get expensive. HGTV Gardens offered these low- and no-cost ways to save money gardening.
1. Stop buying expensive books and magazines (if you must have them, check them out from your local library). Seek out free advice. Attend free lectures held by your local garden club, garden center, horticulture society or cooperative extension service. Find free websites, blogs and instructional videos on YouTube.
2. Don’t buy mulch; make it by shredding leaves in the fall. Learn to turn household waste into compost.
3. Thin existing plants and spread them over your yard instead of buying new plants. Divide and replant day lilies, asters, hostas, sedum, butterfly weed, lavender and other plants. Swapping plants with neighbors is a no-cost way to increase diversity in your yard.
4. Learn how to harvest and store some vegetable and flower seeds to plant the following year. But make sure you are using heirloom or open pollinated plants; this won’t work with hybrid plants.
5. Organize a group of gardeners to buy in bulk and pay a lower price for plants and supplies.
6. Recycle items in your basement or garage that can have a second life in the garden. Turn wooden barrels, hat boxes, wicker baskets and more into containers. Create garden paths from logs cut into circular discs. Use a discarded wooden door as a garden gate, start seeds in empty egg cartons and use grapefruit rinds to catch slugs.
7. Take advantage of discount plants after peak planting season has passed. Take a chance on drooping flowers that you can coax them back to life.
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