How to Get Cheap Plants

You don't need to spend a fortune to landscape your yard. There are tips and tricks you can use to add plants to your garden inexpensively. The tips contained in this guide will help you learn how to get cheap plants.

You don't need to spend a fortune to landscape your yard. There are tips and tricks you can use to add plants to your garden inexpensively. The tips contained in this guide will help you learn how to get cheap plants.
Introduction
- Inexpensive plants can look just as beautiful as plants you pay full price for. Only you will know that you furnished your garden with cheap plants
Step 1: Get Free Plants
2. Certain shrubs, such as lilacs, reproduce by means suckers that emerge around the base of the plant. Digging these up from a plant you own already can give you several new plants.
3. You can take cuttings when you prune a shrub. Dip the stem in rooting hormone, and pot in damp soil to clone the plants.
4. Most perennials should be divided every three years to prevent them from becoming overgrown. You need to dig the plant up, divide it into two or three new plants. One piece is replanted in the existing hole; the others are free plants.
5. Join Freecycle and look for postings from gardeners who have plants to give away. You can also post a request for specific plants.
6. When a landscaper does a job, they may be asked to remove existing plantings. Let local landscapers know what you're looking for, as they may be willing to give you a shrub they remove, rather than disposing of it.
7. Local garden clubs sometimes sponsor plant swaps.
8. Some organizations give away free trees on Arbor Day.
Step 2: Get Cheap Plants at End of Season Sales
- Patience can pay off. Nurseries and greenhouses don't want to be left with plants in September, so as the gardening seasons goes on, prices come down. Fall is a great time to plant most perennials, so you don't lose anything by waiting.
Step 3: Let Your Annuals Go to Seed
- During the growing season, it's important to dead-head flowering plants by removing spent flowers before they can go to seed. The plant, because of its need to reproduce, will send up more flowers. Towards the end of the season, you want to stop dead-heading religiously and let some flowers develop seeds. Save them in labeled envelopes to get free plants next season.