Friday, May 3, 2013

Frugal Friday


The other night I was sitting with my Mom having a nice chat and talking about the yard, gardening, landscape and general backyard and curb appeal.  We were also lamenting over the cost involved in getting all those beautiful flats of flowers and veggies and the vast array of all things beautiful – not to even begin to think about the costs of water features like fountains and little fish ponds!  Seriously, you could just about spend your mortgage in outside features, and being one who loves being outdoors as much as possible, the temptation for discontent when I look out my back door grows faster and stronger than poison ivy and leaves my spirit itching for more.  Not a good thing.

In keeping with yesterday’s post on herb gardening, I thought I’d continue the theme this Frugal Friday and provide you with some economical resources as you begin this season’s landscaping and backyard agricultural endeavors!

First, be sure to get together with your friends and see what plants and seedlings you might be able to trade from what you already have in your gardens.  See what your local garden centers have, especially in their clearance areas – once the season is in full bloom (yes, pun intended) you may be able to get some REAL bargains.  Think of it as day-old bread, only day-old blossoms that might need a little TLC (and a lot of MiracleGrow).  

My number one penny-polishing tip is to buy perennials whenever possible.  While it’s nice to splash some color around with annuals during the summer months, using plants that come up year-after-year makes a LOT more $ent$!  Spring flower bulbs can often be purchased in the summer at a discounted rate, and they will multiply and spread.  You can also hunt around in your local dollar store of choice for seed packs. 

Here are a few sites I found, but scout around in Google as well:

Penniless Parenting – Frugal Gardening

8 Tips for Frugal Gardening From an Old Pro (very sweet)

The Shoestring Gardener (ebook review)

A Frugal Gardening Forum

The Micro Gardener

Frugal Gardening 101


And if you type in “frugal gardening “ on Pinterest there’s tons of ideas – try this link, if it doesn’t work just type it in:  


I particularly liked using the Christmas rope lights to make a heat mat for starting seeds!!  I have some old rope lights somewhere in the basement and now there’s a reason to root them out and use them.

Please be sure to email me or comment here are your own ideas for saving money in the garden and yard!  Share your frugal wealth with the group!!!

In the meantime as I build my dream yard one plant at a time, I think I’ll try to be happy with admiring all the Pinterest images and water my creativity with MiracleGrow in the hopes that I can magically figure out how to design and build all those ideas for outdoor change with nothing more than spare change!!!

Have a blessed weekend!


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