How To Paint a Masterpiece in The Garden, Part Three.

A mixed border at Lakemount Garden in County Cork, Ireland.This chapter deal with the cost of perennial flower gardening and concludes a three-part series on how to create a garden that is not a hodge podge.

Budget:  Most of the great gardens that inspire us were created for landowners with budgets exceeding the annual earnings of many private gardeners. For those of us who need to exercise fiscal restraint, here is a list of some money-saving tips.

A. Create a long term planting plan. Make a scale diagram on graph paper indicating the location for each plant. Shop for plants with a list generated from the master plan and stick to it.

The garden should be realized at whatever speed the budget allows. Some readers will create theirs in a flash; most will need several years to accomplish that goal. That’s OK! Beautiful things are worth the wait; the journey will be as pleasurable as the destination.

B. Make friends with gardeners who lift and divide their perennials regularly and then offer them to others. Take only those plants that fit into the master plan. Don’t take plants that won’t work just because they are free. 

C. Purchase the smallest size perennials available. Use them to propagate more plants over time. Many big box garden centers sell vigorous growing perennials in tiny 2-inch pots, at low prices. If these plants are part of the master plan, the big box store is a good place to start because vigorous plants can grow exponentially in the first season. Most other small plants need only three years to reach maturity and to deliver impressive results.

The sizes of potted plants vary from one retailer to another and from one species of plant to another. Get to know the inventory of local nurseries. Some are more likely than others to stock the needed size. Avoid higher priced mature products until the garden is complete and no additional budget for gardening is required.

D. When three or more perennials of one kind are required, consider buying a single mature perennial in a larger pot. Some plants in large containers propagate themselves while still in their pots. It might be possible to make three small plants out of one. Do the math to determine if one large split-able plant will cost less than three smaller ones. If in doubt, consult the sales staff to confirm that the plant can sustain division.

E. Find out when local nurseries reduce the price of their inventory and reserve some cash flow for that time. The discounts are usually around 20% at nurseries, sometime higher at big box stores. In some areas, discounts become greater as the weather gets colder.

F. At regular retail prices, locally purchased plants are better value than those available on-line or by mail order. The exception to this rule applies to growers that offer plants on-line, at wholesale prices. However, most growers specialize in one or a few species only and all of them insist on a minimum dollar value per order. Do the math to determine if the savings are real.

G. Consider joining a local garden club that schedules plant exchanges between members.

H. Rural fields and undeveloped urban land are good sources of free rocks and stones that add architectural detail to a garden. A few strategically placed boulders will fill up negative space while adding a “wow” factor to a modest garden. Large rocks make the scrawniest plants look good and give the garden a “professional” look.

I. Good quality commercial fertilizer is expensive and, in the long term, not as effective as compost. At retail, compost is also costly. The Public Works Department of municipalities that collect kitchen scraps often distributes free compost to homeowners.

J. Be on the lookout for local renovations and demolitions. Landscapers and builders find it more cost effective to remove plants, rocks, patio stones and other debris with a back-hoe that empties into a dumpster. Try to negotiate with the homeowner or site manager for permission to take these items as they are being uprooted.

Creating a garden that is a masterpiece will always be a work in progress. Plan ahead, be patient, persevere, take pride and expect to rearrange a few plants when a composition doesn’t work out.

Click here to read Part Two

Click here to read Part One

Comments

[Charlotte]

Lovely blog and great photos - really glad I found it!

[Sheila]

Expansion on your budget ideas.
1) Intersperse low, wide growing evergreens.The tiniest pots can be got for $5 at big box stores.They take being over run or severe pruning so that in the case you have to move or get too busy or ill to take care of a flowerbed there is a gorgeous plan B waiting to be revealed. You must look upon your garden as a hobby, not a property value return. I cringe to recall my sister-in-law sodding a beautiful yard because she wanted to camp with the kids on weekends not be stuck in the yard. A high maintenance yard can actually lower the selling price of a home.
2) Multi colored collection of fall planted bulbs (crocus, spanish blue bell, etc) can be found at very reasonable bulk prices. Plant them wider than recommended and be patient, in 4 years you will be able to transplant them in those lovely solid colored drifts on magazine covers.
3)If you see a garden you adore make a habit of taking your walks that route. An avid gardener is working in their yard sooner or later and loves a compliment and sharing their knowledge. I often dig up a few grocery sacks for complete strangers. Take along a some plastic sacks in you pocket (for the pooch right?) and a Sharpie to write on the sack the name and height, then if you forget the particulars you can type in an image search on Bing for some good examples of what to combine it with along with care instructions.
4) Alan Titchmarsh had a "Love Your Garden" episode (I love youtube!) on a man's room after room of exceedingly formal clipped and topiaried gardens where monochromatics were stunning. You can not convince me that formal gardens are budget tho, how anyone keeps a whole yard of box or yew uniformly healthy is not possible.
5) Plant permanently. Some combos are low miantenance forever heaven. I bought bulk mixed 4 months of bloom daffodils from Brecks (order a catalog, a coupon comes with it, and if you start an online order then decide the price is to steep and delete it before the payment is sent they'll sometimes email a coupon) and interspersed them with budget daylillies chosen for their bloom time, color and heights.Gilbert H Wild and Son has hearty bare root stock and though the new varieties are pricey older ones can be had for $2.75. While the daffodils fade the daylillies completely cover the withering foliage (no clean up!) and both are long lived perennials that tolerate total neglect(Don't put nitrogen on daylillies or you'll get all foliage and no flowers.) Eventually this combo will choke out any and every weed, even grass. As with all perennials after bloom I chop the entire plant down to the ground: they soon send up foliage as fresh as springtime instead looking beat up and wishing to skulk under the snow asap. In this bed I will be able to take the bagging lawn mower over the entire island.
6) Plant a hedge if you can not afford a fence. An appraiser told me a board or like fence will retain it's value in resale, chainlink fences will recoup half of their cost, and a filled in hedge will add as much value as a board fence to your property's value. Research what grows best in your area. I did the big box emerald green arbovitae when a Wisconsin native I found later was much more vigorous and care free. I bought the smallest size shrub and carefully plotted out placing them to compliment what my neighbors had in place so they would look less awkward while puny. The wind and sun scald they suffered and stunted them stopped when I started applying Cloud Cover (a polymer that slows evaporation) before the temps dropped below 40F. That product also recommends applications throughout the growing season to decrease watering.
7) Look beyond your own perimeter before planning. It may be tempting to nix an unattractive shrub but probably it was put there to hide an unpleasant view. Likewise there could be an attractive view waiting to be borrowed from next door or the horizon if you carve out a frame for it.
8) Research the varieties present in your yard. Many shrubs respond thankfully to renewal pruning, and many crowded expensive perennials look like a bed of weeds for want of transplanting.
9) Learn how to prune and don't be afraid of it! You'll increase the beauty and lifetime of shrubs and trees twenty fold as well as keeping the size in check, but it must be done before the point of no return. Likewise don't feel heartless about discarding the remnants of flowers you've divided. Over crowded borders do not preform to their full potential: you will get frustrated and feel you must start from scratch with a whole new planting scheme. If it makes you feel better put your discards in a cardboard box at the end of your drive marked "free, variety, color and height" if they don't disappear, which would surprise me, take them to the municiple yard waste site and set them slightly apart from the pile. If no one takes them there the payloader won't object to adding the cardboard to the compost. A friend with a sideline lawn care business takes all the divisions he can get,he piles them into his work yard and waters them until he gets a request for a garden.
10) Pruning lessons: I got over my fear working at my father-in-law's apple orchard "Don't worry, you can't kill them." he said. Vounteering at a municipal garden you will be greatly appreciated and find out which tools suit you best before you buy. youtube has several wonderful tutorials from all parts of the country on every variety of plant.
11) Scour the want ads in Spring. Several garden clubs hold plant sales for fund raisers, and the price is so right! Arrive early if you can: members pot up slips from their own gardens, sometimes it's the "I shouldn't have splurged" rarest priciest they share.
12) Consider long lived edible plants. I have a ruby stemmed rhubarb at the end of a ferny aspargus hedge.The rhubarb stays lovely as long as I reach in to bust off the flowers stalks as they appear, and if the leaves get tired or crowded looking they make a swift single layer mulch that dries to earth color in a few days. The aspargus backs an Asian gravel garden with stone "islands", a budda, temple and bamboo fountain, redbud, siberian iris and dwarf conifers. Both the aspargus and rhubarb blend nicely with that theme....and the best part is both plants are the first flavors of Spring!