Gardening newbie - cheap plants?

greensalad

Hi everyone.

I'm a total garden newbie. I've lived in flats for a long time and have just got a house with a lovely, cosy garden. We are renting but LLs are happy for us to do smallish things (like plant things, put down rocks/stones/edging) just not building stuff.

I went out and spent a bit of money on getting us some equipment as we had NOTHING. I've bought spade, fork, small fork and trowel, gloves, kneepads, big gorilla buckets, a strimmer (as the grassy area is small my Granny advised a strimmer over a lawnmower), rake, watering can. We've been donated a nice metal table and chair set by my other grandparents along with a pressure washer and some shears.

Now I've got all that I really need to start looking at plants but I'm finding they are so expensive, more than I thought. A trip to the garden centre and all the plants were so expensive! We have two small beds with some bushes growing in them but I'd like to fill them out with some prettier/flowering bushes and go for a packed country-garden look.

We also have an ugly bank right at the back. It's about 4ft deep but goes up sharply to about 4ft off ground level (and then there is a fence there). We are a little concerned that as the road running along the back is not public, it'd be quite an easy access point for someone wanting to rob us! So I've toyed with the idea of putting some thorny hedge plants along the back. Also that would fill it out and make it less ugly. I've found a local place that does half pieces of railway sleepers for £15 each so I was thinking two of them and dig them into the bank so I can plant things a bit easier? Make the slope less steep.

Is there anywhere we can get cheaper plants? Do nurseries offer cheaper plants in poor condition that can be brought back to life and such?

Also, are supermarket garden plants worth it? Do they last? I noticed Morrisons has a lot.

REEN

You could try an ad on Freecycle. I've had some lovely plants from Home Bargains, much cheaper than garden centres. My local Morrisons isn't good for plants but you might find a bigger branch is better.

When you get a feel for gardening you might find the herbaceous plants in garden centres and nurseries can be split to give two or three smaller plants, and they soon catch up.

You will find reduced plants at the end of the season, keep an eye on this thread, there will be posts! Anything reduced at this time of year will not be worth buying.

Enjoy your new hobby!

greensalad

Thanks, freecycle is great, I haven't managed to get anything yet but seen lots of posts for top soil and such which I plan to take up when I need it.

At the moment I am planning to strim back when it's dry (wanted to last night but alas, massive downpour!) and try to reseed/aerate the grass as it's patchy, mossy, and not very nice at all. I am also going to try and get some bricks on Freecycle and see if I can put down a small garden path to help with the muddiness on the route from shed to deck.

I'll put out a freecycle request for some plants and see what I can get. I really want some flowering bushy types to go in the borders and fill it out as it just looks so patchy. We do have hanging baskets (all dead) so again try to get some pretty spring flowers growing in those.

Thanks!

Waterlily24

We were lucky when we did our garden. It's a very big garden and the people who owned it a while before us used to grow potatoes in a large part of it, the next people just grassed it over. There were no plants in that bit at all. Hubby found an advert in the local paper for a nursery we went there and it was a nursery that most of their trade was mail order. The plants were small but cheap but the lady there let us have all the big ones that had grown too big to send out.
The plants are all huge now, we did lose a few but not many. The garden looks lovely now

Davesnave

Car boot sales, the local WI market and fetes etc are all places where you will find cheaper plants.

Unless your garden is truly alpine, I'd not waste money on railway sleepers etc but to deter opportunist burglars, I might plant a couple of thorny blackberries or some shrub roses.

greensalad

Davesnave wrote: »

Car boot sales, the local WI market and fetes etc are all places where you will find cheaper plants.

Unless your garden is truly alpine, I'd not waste money on railway sleepers etc but to deter opportunist burglars, I might plant a couple of thorny blackberries or some shrub roses.

I thought that for £30 some railway sleepers would help me plant a bit of a nicer space. I didn't want to cover the entire back bank in thorny bushes, just a hedge against the fence. I did think blackberries but I think they look a tad to wild and weedy. I had considered dog roses which at least look a bit more intentional (it's directly opposite the back window so I want a nice view at least).

The reason I was thinking sleepers is because if I put a row of dog roses along the back, then some sleepers at angles, I could plant lots of smaller more colourful plants and have a more thought-out space. I do want the garden to look "done" rather than wild.

I was thinking hellebores for the side beds to blend in with the bushes. But not sure what plants to put on the back bank. The garden doesn't get much sunlight and also gets quite wet, I believe due to poor drainage as it backs onto tarmac.

Ectophile

Supermarkets often sell cheap plants. Try Tesco, Morrisons, Aldi or Lidl. But beware of half-dead plants that haven't been looked after. These plants are often quite small, though, and will need some time to fill out a big space.

Mojisola

Don't forget seeds - splash out on some annual seeds for this year to provide colour and give you time to decide what larger plants you would like.

Davesnave

Cultivated strains of blackberries aren't any more 'wild and weedy' than you allow them to be, as you'd tie them into wires or supports on the fence.

If you just want something tough, tidy and prickly, then something like berberis or pyracantha would work, but they take longer to grow.

REEN

Rosa rugosa makes a good prickly hedge.

If you do find dried out supermarket plants that are so reduced you might as well take a punt on them, give them two days in a bucket of water before planting out.

villagelife

Pyracantha is thorny and you can get different coloured berries and gives colour in the winter and birds like the berries.
A packet of mixed annual seeds will give you colour this year for very little money and not a huge effort.
Gooseberry and currant bushes can be brought cheaply and are prickly and you can get fruit from them.