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Gardening On A Shoestring

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By Monica Brandies

Published: January 17, 2007

Brandon, FL - Brandon, FL - Whatever you spend on your landscaping and garden is a wise investment.

It will come back to you many times over in food or flower production, increase your property value, better your mental and physical health and create personal satisfaction, plus other immeasurable benefits.

But if you want to spend less and gain more do the following:

1. PLAN carefully. This will save you more than money. It will save human and fossil energy. It can help you budget for improving certain areas during certain years. Sketch your house and property and any existing features like trees, driveways and patios. Do it as accurately as you can, but better to do this badly than not at all. Then furnish the outdoor rooms of your yard as you would inside. Plant only what will fit -- now and at maturity. Get a pamphlet on xeriscaping from your extension agent or check out my book "Xeriscaping for Florida Homes." It'll teach you about grouping plants according to water needs, cutting down on turf areas and help you choose native plants that will thrive on little care.

2. PLANT SEEDS instead of plants whenever this is feasible. In fact, right now is a good time. You'll get many more plants for the money. Start now and you'll have blooms or food from annuals in the spring. Start perennials anytime. Patient gardeners even start trees from seeds. However, seeds take much longer, so if you want citrus or petunias as soon as possible, plants are worth the extra cost.

This is a good time to plant seeds of cabbage and all the cole crops, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, sugar pod peas, arugula, many of the herbs, and flowers such as nasturtiums, cosmos and larkspur.

Also learn to recognize and nurture seedlings. I now expect nasturtiums to re-seed. All I have to do is re-plant the ones that come up in the wrong places. I am also transplanting some larkspur seedlings that came up from last year's plants and I found and weeded around a few Johnny-jump-ups. Look for such near where you had them before. I found the seedling that is now my huge loquat tree soon after
I had bought one. I transplanted the seedling and it has out-produced the purchased plant a hundredfold.

3. SHARE your extra plants with other gardeners and they will do the same. This is half the fun. If you pass a lovely garden with something you crave, go to the door or leave a note asking permission to take cuttings or extra seedlings and offering something you don't see but have yourself in exchange.

Go to garden club or plant society meetings for their sales or, even better, join in their exchange.

Many of my fruit trees and shrubs were won at the raffle of the rare fruit club.

4. SHOP AT GARAGE SALES for seeds, plants, tools and vases. The seeds may or may not be fresh, but if they are cheap enough, you can test them when you get home by germinating a few between damp paper towels. You can pretty well tell about the plants and tools. Hoes and spades must be sharpened periodically in any case. Check hoses for good ends and handles for good connections. If someone in your neighborhood is having a sale, ask if you can add some of your plants. Then stay with them for a while and talk to the people who buy and you my find some willing to trade as well. It was at a garage sale I found the old-fashioned cultivator that is now my long-handled picker for raking oranges and other fruit off of high branches.

5. ASK for the almost lost. Some gardeners find plants on trash piles and help themselves. Others see someone digging out something they want and stop and ask for it. A few watch where roads and new developments are about to destroy plants, ask permission, and take the plants home, even small trees. Some of my favorite plants came that way. Anything set out for trash pick up you don't even have to ask about, but asking could result in important information like the name of the plant if you don't recognize it, what color the flowers will be and whether the plant needs sun or shade.

At least one of the plants I got this way had apparently wilted so badly the owner considered it dead.

He or she put out two pots of pink justicia the night before trash day, and one of them revived from the dew. I came by at the advantageous time, screeched to a halt, backed up, put it in my car and brought it home. Cuttings from it have spread throughout my yard.

Monica Brandies can be reached at monica@gardensflorida.com.

Monica Brandies can be reached at monica@gardensflorida.com.

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