Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

kayannie

EssexHebridean said:

Ooh Cheery has reminded me about the fuschia too - although I suspect ours is currently doing its annual impression of a bunch of dead twigs. It'll suddenly burst into life and flower like the little show-off it is in while no doubt! I'd love to take the redcurrant but really can't see that surviving being dug up, sadly! 

We dug up several redcurrant bushes when we moved & they all survived.
KA

Moorviews

I am another mover of plants. I become very attached to them! When I leave here I shall certainly be digging up some of my favourite rose bushes and taking them with me. About 10 years ago I bought some roses online that all had French sounding names; beautiful, very highly scented and cheap. I have lost all the labels and the nursery I bought them from no longer exists. I only vaguely and partially recall any names and just one of them is available if I buy in bulk from the continent. I’ve never thought of trying to take cuttings from them but this could be a good idea. 

foxgloves

@Moorviews - I don't have any roses, so have never tried to strike cuttings from them. Generally, while I have varied levels of success with cuttings, they are so easy & quick to do that I think it's worth a try. I've got a few little firethorn ones in a pot at the moment. I've also got a glass water bottle in the conservatory holding cuttings from 3 pelargoniums. One of them is already putting out roots. I quite like this simple method of rooting cuttings......a bit reminiscent of 1970s nature tables at primary school.
Most of my plantings are hardy perennials & my Mum always taught me to have a good look down into the pot when buying these at the garden centre. She said that anything which already had two crowns would mean I'd be able to divide it probably as early as the following year. I do lots of divisions.....hardy geraniums, geums, centaurea, alchemilla, etc, & find that repeatedly using a core selection of (free!) plants throughout the garden really gives it a cohesive, cottagey feel. Self-seeders such as foxgloves & aquilegias also very much earn their keep & I am a keen seed-saver too, which also keeps costs down.
F x

EssexHebridean

Thanks all for the encouragement to attempt to shift the redcurrant when we move - I think a lot will depend on who eventually buys the place - if we feel our buyers might appreciate what is there then we may opt to leave it behind, but otherwise we probably have little to lose, do we! They'll be keeping the gooseberries regardless - they're vicious little blighters at the best of times and I can only imagine how feisty they would becomes if we tried relocating them! 

Good work on getting the hospital appointment changed Foxgloves - and also good that it isn't leading to a delay. 

foxgloves

@EssexHebridean - Thanks. Isn't it typical that just about the only day I wasn't available was the very one selected for my appointment?! They were good about changing it but I note that there is a new rule now. Anyone who doesn't turn up to, or attempts to reschedule their already changed scan appointment again is automatically out of the queue & referred back to their GP. Sounds to me like they must have a lot of people taking the p*ss. No intention of missing mine - feel like I'm walking around like a tortoise!
F

foxgloves

Afternoon Sunny Campers! Just having a coffee & a rest out on my reading bench to straighten my back up after a good (if slow) gardening session. These benches are v good for posture. Well I could ramble on about tadpole-gobbling corvids, cat spats in the tulips, a further attempted cat biscuit robbery, the sad demise of the beautiful big angle-shades moth who lived in my greenhouse & a whole load of other daily ephemera, but this diary is about money saving. So has there been any?
I'd say I've kept the frugal faith today:
*Did meal plans over coffee with Mr F first thing. Factored in that our loyalty card with local.butcher is full, meaning we can exchange it for £10 of free meat. He has a lot of '3 for £10' deals so we have been a little general on a couple of days of our meal plan as we dont yet quite know what we will choose.
*Wrote shopping list as Mr F seemed keen to pick up the Waitbl00m part of the groceries on his way home from work - he swears this gives us more of a weekend.
*Wrote clearly on list that we have £65 left in April's grocery budget. Sounds like plenty, but with cat food inflation putting a 40-box at £16.75, that's quite a big regular wodge.
*Baked a batch of wholemeal bread rolls. Could foresee us running out of bread over the weekend & it seemed silly adding it to the shopping list when I have all the ingredients at home.
*Two good garden sessions (divided by an hour's lunch break) weeding part of the border near the new fence. Moved a nice mauve geranium, which had grown into another one, also found a free tellima, aquilegia & divided up some of Mum's fab pink primroses - all used to fill gaps. Another resource: Moved a piece of dwarf comfrey to fill a gap, then slowly & methodically dug up the rest of it & divided it between 2 compost bins. It's great free compost activator. Dwarf comfrey is quite pretty & good ground cover - tri-colour flowers of pale blue, pink & white.....but fail to reduce it in the autumn (guilty as charged!) & it will be getting ready to annexe a neighbouring county by Spring. And throughout all of this, I was removing bindweed roots & other assorted baddies into the council garden waste bin.
*Very little effort required for tonight's nosebag. I made a sufficiently big quiche yesterday to feed us tonight too, so just need to make a salad to go with it.
"I will try to advance the socks I'm knittung for myself later this evening. Gorgeous yarn which was a birthday gift last year. Spent ages trying to decide whether to knit lace panels or cables up the sides, but in the end, I decided that a plain pair will show off the lovely dip-dyed sock yarn to its best advantage.
We have tickets for a garden show at the weekend. I do hope I can stick to the 2 or 3  things I'm after & just enjoy browsing everything else.......
Love to all,
F x

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, I might try some dwarf comfrey - I have plenty of room and would happily let it take over everywhere 😂 The last bit of actual comfrey i planted didn't make it - am I the only person who's ever killed it off?!

foxgloves

@Cheery_Daff - Lol, yes, I think you actually could be!
F

Moorviews

Thanks for the encouragement Foxgloves, I’ll keep an eye out for a good looking shoot and give the rose cuttings a go. My mother often rooted roses from flower arrangements so it must work sometimes! I take a lot of basil cuttings and love the sight of those little roots growing in a glass on the windowsill. Our garden inhabitants sound very similar, although possibly my alchemilla has run completely amok but I do love it. Aquilegias are just beautiful and it is so lovely to see them popping up all over the place in the spring. I have had some self seeded cyclamen and hellebores for the first time this year too. I garden with quite a light hand as nature comes up with some beautiful arrangements often. Definitely a yes to peering into the pots at the garden centre for best value too! As you demonstrate, it is possible to garden in a moneysaving way and it doesn’t have to be a hugely extravagant activity, although obviously it very much can be as I have proved in the distant past. I am embarrassed by how many purchases never got out of their pots and eventually perished because I didn’t actually have room to plant them. I also have some things in completely the wrong place because I quickly planted them to avoid the aforementioned scenario. I currently have an apricot coloured quince flowering under a crab apple that is just about to flower. They are both beautiful but absolutely awful together 😂 

weenancyinAmerica

I had a neighbor who used to wander the neighborhood and ask if she could take cuttings of their roses.  She had over one hundred growing in her yard. One of the magazines here noted that if you took the flower tops off of the roses you are gifted, you can actually grow plants from them. And there was a video on how to use a banana to help rose cuttings grow. Rose cuttings seem to do really well.