When I first started gardening, my budget amount was equal to the cost of one meal for 5 at my local family restaurant.
Less than $100 for the entire Gardening Season.
I admit it, at first?
I thought it was going to take me 20 years to achieve a pretty view and some curb appeal for my yard. I knew I wanted medium to larger sized boulders for the garden borders, and those are not cheap! But with the help of a landscape depot and some local friends who gifted me a whole truck load of horse manure, I was able to get off to a good start.
Don't believe me? Lets start from the beginning, and let me show you how we first started adding garden beds.
2008 to 2009
This is the side of our garage in the backyard. I like to refer to this as the Evergreen Year. They were cheap cheap cheap and one of the garden centers I used to frequent had amazing email coupons. I bought two 7' tall arborvitae and 8 smaller ones for $120.
The next year I was able to add a bit more color. But with my budget being extremely low, a lot of the plants I was buying were annuals.
aka yearly plants. Not ones that would come back the following years. But the more I started to visit my local Nurseries and Garden Centers I saw sales, Garden Groups to join. Plus clearance racks.
After flowers are gone, Garden Centers love to mark things down to 2 bucks.
That is what started helping me, add year round color and interest to my garden beds. Below is 2012. 3 Years of going hosta crazy (cuz they were cheap!) and adding a new flowerbed in front of my sidewalk. A lot of the plants in the new bed were transplants from the backyard.
Here are 5 of those on sale arborvitae I told you about before. We currently use those to screen excess "goodies" that will not fit in our 2 car garage.
Trailer, outdoor chairs, you know that crap you don't want to see until you need it?
Some of my beds were so bare above I felt the need to add anything metal that I could paint, or turn into some sort of decoration.
I also used excess boulders as interest too.
Buying smaller versions or baby plants really helped me in the long run. I'd rather lose a 4 or 7 dollar plant to my gardeners neglect than a 40 dollar one.
The views you'll see below, look NOTHING like what is there now. Due to the backyard project we had to tackle last year. Every plant close to the back of the house got moved or given to friends. More on that below.
I also started relocating things from the front to the back. Every year I have a favorite garden bed that I seem to pay more attention too.
I also have a tendency to upcycle leftover into bird houses or things for my flower beds.
Lanterns
I like to add them for night lighting or interest. I love lanterns!
Also as my plants grew bigger, I learned that I could dig them up and divide them and spread them out. So instead of buying 6 or 12. I bought 3. The following year, once they grew up I would divide them.
I also learned that I love Yard Art. Rusty items standing proud year round and letting nature take its course.
Every year brings new home DIY's and last year was a sump pump issue we had. (You can read that HERE) We seem to be turning into a high water table area and decided to turn a crappy situation into a garden beauty.
The riverbed you see to the right is how we are currently diverting the water being discharged from our hardest working sump pump.
This year I was thinking of turning it into some sort of fountain or waterfall.
This year I am saving for a backyard fence, so plants being relocated, divided are probably again in my future.
I am also going to contact my county courthouse and find out where we can get mulch for free. I average about 65 bags of 2 cubic yard mulch and I want that $$ for my fence. So if I have the option of free or really cheap mulch from my city, I am going to take it!
I am looking forward to what the 2016 Garden Season brings to my home.
I am already noticing some goodies, that I am going to want to relocate to highlight the new porch stairs we put in last year. If you haven't seen that post, be sure to check it out. We made our tiny front porch look twice as big by only spending $150! Click HERE to check it out.
XO,
