Frugal Flower-Gardening Part 1

Nearly everyone is pinched for funds right now. I hate to see anyone skimping on flower gardens, or deciding not to create one because they can't afford it. Beautiful, glossy magazines would have us think that a small fortune has to go into landscaping and bushes, the newest, most fashionable perennials and expensive annuals. There are many ways that a beautiful garden can be achieved with a small budget.

Buying seeds vs. plants

Think about it. A six-pack of petunias can cost close to $3 is some places. A packet of seeds containing from 100  to 1,000 seeds is about $2. 

It's true, not all of us have the time or desire to grow plants from seed, but it's an option I encourage you to think about! And when you have too many seedlings, your gardening friends will adore you all the more for donating your surplus to them. 

Now, how to obtain seeds -  it's really not complicated, but there are more options than many people realize.

Buying them at the local super-center is an obvious option. I happen to be pregudice against this idea, partly because I love to support small/ family businesses, partly because I have gotten terrible seeds from super-centers; as in, the WRONG seeds were in the packets. Yeah.

 

Mail order is one of my favorite options. There are a lot of great seed companies out there, ranging from Pinetree Gardens, who give you small amounts of seed (for home gardening) with very low price, to J.L. Hudson whose packages range in size, but the pricing is a no-nonsense $2 a packet, to Select Seeds, who have reasonable prices on their many heirloom and rare seeds, adding a touch of old-fashioned charm to your home.  

Then there is seed swapping...

Online garden clubs provide one way to swap seeds. (Or you can swap with friends, as I have done!) It's simple. You list seeds that you have presumably collected from your garden, and when you find someone who wants to swap with you, you each pay to send seeds to each other. I normally end up with numerous packages for under $3.








If you prefer plants to seeds, it's very very tempting to blow the budget at the nearest super-garden center. Again, I would encourage looking at mail-ordering plants. (If you can afford it, by all means support a local nursery. If it's a choice between Wal-Mart and mail-order, go for mail-ordering!)  Bluestone Perennials is my absolute favorite company. The fact that they grow their own plants instead of shipping them in from who knows where is a huge bonus.

Beware that there are companies that sell highly discounted "dormant" plants that they claim will grow after a few weeks, snagging your attention with generous coupons that make the deal almost unbelievable. Some of the plants will grow alright, but I have wasted a lot of money buying "cheap" plants that turned out to be dead plants. Paying a little more per plant for healthy, live, growing plants is worth it!
Propagation
Most perennials divide easily, and shrubby plants like lavender and roses or certain annuals like coleuses  root from cuttings. I could go into greater detail about this, but I'll leave the detail for a future article.

Host a plant-swap!

Have an abundance of one or two flowers? Want more variety? Invite your gardening friends to a perennial-swap! Get an idea of how many are coming and ask each friend to bring a plant or division of what they want to swap for each guest.  I co-hosted one last spring and plan another this year. Combine it with a spring brunch or luncheon to make it an event to remember.







Next week: DIY hardscape.

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The story of a rose bush

Last semester I bought a miniature rose bush at Safeway. I know all of you real gardeners are gasping in horror and going, “She bought it WHERE???” But let that pass. I bought it at Safeway. When I bought it, it had lush, full leaves and a number of buds which hadn’t yet opened into flowers.

So, I brought it back to my dorm room and installed it on my desk where it would have some sun but not too much and I fed it and I watered it. But something strange happened. Instead of the buds opening up, they all got dry and one by one fell off. The leaves turned yellow. My reaction: “OH NO I HAVE KILLED THE ROSE BUSH!”

It was a very traumatic time.

But eventually I picked myself off the floor and thought, “Well, it is not dead yet. True, the buds have all fallen off, and the leaves are sadly depleted. But there are still some leaves. So I won’t give up on it yet.”

So, I kept watering it and kept feeding it and patting its leaves and telling it not to die. And then one day I looked at it and said, “What? Is that….a new leaf?” And it was. And another new leaf followed it, and another, and then a new stem with new leaves on it.

Finally, I knew it was going to live (unless I stopped watering it, of course). But there were still no hints of any flowers. I worried about this for awhile (what if it never bloomed again?) but I kept watering and feeding it and decided that even if it never bloomed, it would still be my rose bush and I would love it.

Around this time I went home for the summer and took my rose bush with me. I put it out on the back porch and fed it and watered it.

And then, one day I looked down as I was watering it and saw…a bud! O frabjous day!

That bud bloomed and then seven other buds appeared and began to grow and swell and burst into flower until as I am writing this, the rose bush looks like this:



Now, all of you are probably (I hope) going, “Yay, Maureen did not kill the rose bush!” But you may also be waiting for the point. Or maybe wondering if there is one. Well, the point is this: sometimes our relationships with people are like my rose bush. At first we see them and they’re full of potential for flowers and happiness and joy. And then, even though we feed and water them, something happens and the buds fall off and the leaves turn yellow and we go, “OH NO I HAVE KILLED IT!” But I think that sometimes if we keep watering it and keep feeding it and keep ourselves open to the other person, sometimes all the watering and feeding does something and all of a sudden there’s new growth and maybe it isn’t so hopeless anymore. And then you see that that there’s a bud amid all the new growth and suddenly that relationship blesses you more than you ever could have expected a few months or years ago.

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