You don’t have to spend a fortune to have a beautiful garden, says thrifty gardener and writer Alex Mitchell.
Club together: If you are buying online, group your purchases with friends to save on postage costs and look out for bargains if you order a multiple of one plant.
Garden centre or car boot?: Don’t rule out cut-price pound stores and car boot sales, which often have good plants for much less. When buying plants, don’t buy the ones already in full flower. Look for those with unopen buds or wait until the end of summer to buy shrubs and perennials, when garden centres discount their stock. Autumn is also a good time for planting.
Pots for a pittance: Use your imagination. Recycle old containers such as tins, bowls and colanders to give your garden instant character. If you want to go big and brazen, brightly coloured plastic tub trugs can make good flower and fruit containers. Alternatively, ask your local deli for huge empty tins which have held olive oil, or other vintage tins, taking off the labels and letting them rust naturally. Just make sure you drill plenty of holes in the bottom for drainage.
Be waterwise: Instead of investing in an expensive automatic irrigation system for your potted plants, save your old one-litre plastic bottles, discard the lid, cut off the base of the bottle and push it lid end down into the compost beside your plant. When the bottle doesn’t fall over, it’s deep enough. Fill it with water and it will drip out gradually, direct to the plant roots.
Thrifty topiary: If you want to recreate the effect of clipped box, use a different plant. Ilex crenata, or Japanese holly, looks almost the same as box and can be pruned in the same way, but tends to be more affordable and won’t suffer from box blight, a disease which can wipe out box in a flash.
Hedge your bets: If you want to create a hedge, take advantage of bare-root offers at the end of the planting season (which runs from winter to early spring). Good offers tend to come up towards the end of winter when nurseries are trying to get rid of their bare-root stock.
Pave the way: If your urban garden has an old concrete path you want to renew on a shoestring, be warned that the cost of breaking it up and removing it may be high. If the concrete is sound, you can lay paving stones on top of it, or alternatively use tiles, laying them on a layer of mortar or a resin bonding adhesive.
Gardening On A Shoestring by Alex Mitchell is published by Kyle, priced £16.99. Available now.
