Working with a small budget can bring out a gardener’s creativity and skill for innovation. Plants don’t necessarily need costly pots, fancy lawn furniture, or expert landscaping to show off their best features. Some of the most magical gardens are those that exhibit the wise use of space and the versatility of a well-selected group of plants. The design ideas below should help you work within a shoestring budget and should hopefully inspire you to find new uses for household objects!
Use reliable perennials for year-round structure and to create sections in the garden. As opposed to annuals, which need to be planted year after year and may be costly to purchase, long-lived perennials maximize the value of your garden investments.
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Use natural materials like bamboo logs, wooden boxes, or plywood planks to create raised garden beds. These blend in with their surroundings better, can be trimmed or stacked, and should help promote proper drainage in flower beds.
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Feel free to fill up bare spaces with both vertical arrangements and low beds! This creates a garden with many focal points and fully embraces the appeal of a more organic and messy layout.
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Take advantage of a mixed-species plot for natural pest management. Investing in liquid pesticides and fungicide sprays may be costly and harmful in the long run. Grow companion plants with natural pest-repellent properties (many of these are common herbs) alongside vulnerable ones.
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Maximize your resources with a vertical setup. You can even use recycled planks of wood, an old shoe rack, or a stack of tires for this one!
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Make natural paths using sand, gravel, or cheap stones. There’s no need to use paving to create well-defined paths and to separate plots. To maintain a neat finish, simply make sure to trim your border plants every now and then.
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Roughly line shapes with turf and gravel. A combination of curved and straight lines can turn a garden into a relaxing visual feast. There’s no need to use costly landscaping boulders or bricked edges. Simply edge your turf with low-cost gravel.
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Don’t throw away old household items! Instead, give them renewed life by turning them into whimsical plant containers. Old lavatories would definitely be amusing, and unforgettable, conversation pieces in a budget garden.
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Repaint used tires and stack them to create a raised container. You can even place this at the front end of a driveway to serve as a soft barrier that won’t scratch your car’s bumper! Get creative with paint colors and use them to accentuate the colors of the contained blooms.
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Milk cartons can work great in a herb garden. Before folding and tossing out those milk and juice cartons, cut off their tops and re-use them as makeshift pots for tender plants. Once the “pot” is full of leafy greens, you can take it indoors and into your kitchen!
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Boots of any kind make for great winter planters. Ski boots, rain boots, hockey boots – you name ‘em! If you have to size up, turn your old pair into pots for flowering plants, like the fabulous winter heather (Erica carnea), instead of throwing them away.
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Native, low-cost grasses provide fantastic texture and vertical structure. You need not look far or break your wallet for a dependable and eye-catching border plant. Instead, harness the beauty of ornamental grasses!
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Show your passion for repurposing waste by maintaining a hanging garden made of used plastic bottles. Simply slice off the top of the bottle, punch holes along the side for strings, and voila, you can have a hanging pot. As a plus, instead of throwing away the top half, you can use it to protect seedlings from the elements.
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Naturalize wire fences with fruiting vines. Apart from producing layers of leaves to add privacy to your backyard, these should gift you with their seasonal bounties of fruits and flowers.
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Grow low-maintenance, specimen trees. These look stately on their own, providing budget gardens with just enough character to set them apart. Moreover, they’ll last for what feels like forever!
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For an organized look, rear plants in their dedicated dirt plots. This should give a budget garden a diverse yet structured feel with a defined layout. It should also enhance the ease with which specific species can be maintained.
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Use solar-powered lights for illumination at night. These can be moved from one area to another, provided they receive suitable levels of direct light during the day. Solar-powered lights are a cost-effective tool for adding light around low pots and in distant parts of the garden.
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Low-maintenance grasses are cheap yet refined choices for outdoor water features. These are remarkably easy to propagate and can be grown at various spots around, or within, a decorative pond, fountain, or water border.
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Use self-spreading, ground cover perennials to fill out layered borders. As these plants can spread on their own via vegetative means, they’ll gradually form colonies that will fill out gaps in the garden. You can enhance their rate of spread by propagating them via root or shoot divisions.
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Boxed borders can help break the uniform appearance of turf in small spaces. These should also help contain creeping plants, preventing their roots and stems from trailing into your lawn. You can paint these to match your fence or leave them bare for a more natural look.
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Invest in planters that are vertical gardens in and of themselves. These will help you maximize your space smartly and efficiently. You can also make them yourself by adding perforations to the sides of a used drum, large water container, or any upright structure with thin walls.
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Support shrubs and vines with a mesh lattice and makeshift arches. Low-cost materials found in your local hardware store can be used to create a vertical spectacle for flower and fruit production.
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Starting off with seeds or seedlings may require some patience, but this will ultimately save you money. Fully-grown plants, ready to place into their permanent positions or weave onto fences, may be quite pricey. Over time, you’ll find that starting your plants from seed is rewarding and highly educational.
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A lattice can be made with virtually any type of elongated, stiff material. It’s a wonderful tool for supporting trailing plants and for creating partitions in vegetable and cottage gardens.
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For controlled conditions on a budget, you can construct a crude greenhouse with improvised materials. There’s no need to use glass or expensive acrylic sheets. You may use transparent or slightly translucent, flexible material around a secured frame. Ensure that the material can be taken down or replaced when needed.
Final Thoughts
One of the best things about working with a budget is there’s more room to make mistakes while experimenting with plants and materials. As you find more uses for seemingly ordinary objects, you’ll find that your garden will grow in diversity, structure, and character! Working within financial limitations can be quite thrilling for both inexperienced and expert gardeners. Keeping an open mind and remaining patient, especially while waiting for your plants to grow, are both crucial to cultivating a budget-friendly garden.
