You are only a few tricks away from saving money on your home gardening presentation.
Ever wonder how landscapers save money on plants? If you need to cut back on your budget, you can soon find that keeping your yard looking nice and affording plants is not possible. However, from my experience with growing up on a farm in Western Kentucky, I know about ways you can stretch your plants based on our experiences with extreme droughts.
These are common practices among corporate landscapers that do large gardening projects at places like the mall. At least one of these tips will be the budget savings salvation that you have been
looking for to decorate the outside of your home.
Using root tone to get free plants from neighbors
As a beginning gardener, it is interesting to take clippings from plants and see which ones will accept root tone and start producing a new plant. In general, any plant that has multiple leaves is likely to grow roots from the stem with the help of a rooting hormone. This $4.00 bottle will keep for years and help you to produce hundreds of plants for free.
Tip: Tiny single serving liquor bottles, are perfect for this project. Clean them of their remaining contents and place them in your kitchen window. Over time, you will learn which ones root easily. Also, be sure to label them and write the date that you started the rooting process.
Planting potted plants in the ground
As long as you can shelter the plants indoors during winter months, we all know buying perennial (lasts for more than a year) versus annuals (only lasts a year) potted plants saves you money.
However, what if we took this potted plant idea outdoors in the summer? You can save yourself a lot of time, money, and stress by never taking the plant out of the pot. When you buy a plant from a nursery or gardening store, immediately place it in a much larger ventilated container with some extra soil and gravel in the bottom.
Most of the time, these cheap and flimsy pots are given away for free at the gardening
centers. Then, instead of taking the plant and putting it directly in the ground, you will put it in a larger pot and finally place the pot in a hole in the ground. By covering the earth around the pot with some small rocks, you will have a beautiful presentation. When the plant is losing its color, you can simply remove it and replace that spot with another potted plant.
Tip: Instead of the plant dying in the ground, you will have a chance to save the plant and your money by giving it some TLC in another area of the yard or inside. This is also a great way to store plants over the colder months and plant them again next year without buying an expensive greenhouse.
Making coleus a bigger part of your plant budget
One of the brightest and most diverse looking plants that can save landscapers money are the coleus. Adding to their landscaping budget benefits, these are the easiest plants to grow in the shade that I have found. One of their budget saving abilities is the ease at which you can grow a coleus from clippings.
You simply take a large portion of the top of one of your coleus plants and put it in a glass of water. The roots will start to grow within a week or so. Clipping back a coleus is extremely important anyway, in order to keep gardening vibrant. You can also take a few clippings in the fall and keep them in the warmest part of your house over the winter in order to have new plants for next year.
Personally, I started with a variety tray of 25 coleus for $16. In the four years I grew them, I only spent $16 on plants, I had between 50 to 75 plants each year, and gave away over 400 clippings from those plants to friends.
Tip: The coleus grows a flower cone often. Check them every few days. If you pinch off these cones as soon as you see them, these plants will keep for years.
Ever wonder how landscapers save money on plants? If you need to cut back on your budget, you can soon find that keeping your yard looking nice and affording plants is not possible. However, from my experience with growing up on a farm in Western Kentucky, I know about ways you can stretch your plants based on our experiences with extreme droughts.
These are common practices among corporate landscapers that do large gardening projects at places like the mall. At least one of these tips will be the budget savings salvation that you have been
Using root tone to get free plants from neighbors
As a beginning gardener, it is interesting to take clippings from plants and see which ones will accept root tone and start producing a new plant. In general, any plant that has multiple leaves is likely to grow roots from the stem with the help of a rooting hormone. This $4.00 bottle will keep for years and help you to produce hundreds of plants for free.
Tip: Tiny single serving liquor bottles, are perfect for this project. Clean them of their remaining contents and place them in your kitchen window. Over time, you will learn which ones root easily. Also, be sure to label them and write the date that you started the rooting process.
Planting potted plants in the ground
As long as you can shelter the plants indoors during winter months, we all know buying perennial (lasts for more than a year) versus annuals (only lasts a year) potted plants saves you money.
However, what if we took this potted plant idea outdoors in the summer? You can save yourself a lot of time, money, and stress by never taking the plant out of the pot. When you buy a plant from a nursery or gardening store, immediately place it in a much larger ventilated container with some extra soil and gravel in the bottom.
Most of the time, these cheap and flimsy pots are given away for free at the gardening
centers. Then, instead of taking the plant and putting it directly in the ground, you will put it in a larger pot and finally place the pot in a hole in the ground. By covering the earth around the pot with some small rocks, you will have a beautiful presentation. When the plant is losing its color, you can simply remove it and replace that spot with another potted plant.
Tip: Instead of the plant dying in the ground, you will have a chance to save the plant and your money by giving it some TLC in another area of the yard or inside. This is also a great way to store plants over the colder months and plant them again next year without buying an expensive greenhouse.
Making coleus a bigger part of your plant budget
One of the brightest and most diverse looking plants that can save landscapers money are the coleus. Adding to their landscaping
budget benefits, these are the easiest plants to grow in the shade that I have found. One of their budget saving abilities is the ease at which you can grow a coleus from clippings.
You simply take a large portion of the top of one of your coleus plants and put it in a glass of water. The roots will start to grow within a week or so. Clipping back a coleus is extremely important anyway, in order to keep gardening
vibrant. You can also take a few clippings in the fall and keep them in the warmest part of your house over the winter in order to have new plants for next year.
Personally, I started with a variety tray of 25 coleus for $16. In the four years I grew them, I only spent $16 on plants, I had between 50 to 75 plants each year, and gave away over 400 clippings from those plants to friends.
Tip: The coleus grows a flower cone often. Check them every few days. If you pinch off these cones as soon as you see them, these plants will keep for years.
Hmm quite interesting site! I really like that thing; I want you to post some more things on that. Kane Packaging
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