Flower Gardens

» Joni Rose - Gardening on a budget

I have a challenge. I plan to buy a new place and move out of the house I am renting. I have a large fish pond with flower beds surrounding it and other rock and flat gardens that have some perennials but there are holes that I usually fill with annuals (and spend a fortune doing it). As I may be moving soon, I would like to fill my garden as inexpensively as possible to be colourful and showy yet save some money for my new garden. Can you suggest some ways to garden on the cheap? I live in the Southern coastal area of British Columbia, Canada.
Joni

» Cottage_Garden - Gardening on a budget

Hi Joni! Dontcha just love moving. But, it sounds like you have some exciting plans ahead. WOoHoo!

Purchasing annuals definitely adds up fast if you need more than just a few. The least expensive way to go would be planting seeds for some easy to grow annuals. Plant them directly in the garden to avoid all the seed-starting equipment expenses.

I'm not sure of your color scheme, but for sunny spots you could try some of these planted early for early season bloom: sweet peas, sweet alyssum, calendula; then marigolds, nasturtium and batchelor buttons, then for later season bloom you could use cleome, sunflowers, thunbergia, and zinnias (Cut and Come Again blooms well all summer in a nice selection of colors). I am not sure how warm it is in summer where you are, the last 4 do like a warm sunny spot. All of these should be easy to find locally in the seed racks at the stores.

Even cheaper, because you would need even fewer seeds since each plant is big, you could do an annual vine like morning glory and let it ramble as a ground cover (if there is nothing to climb it will crawl). BUT this can be a big weedy nuisance the following year due to all the fallen morning glory seeds all over the area.

Renee's Garden web site has detailed descriptions and planting instructions for different varieties of these annuals. Some are planted very early and some later when the soil has warmed up.

Hope this helps!

-- posted by Cottage_Garden

» Joni Rose - Gardening on a budget

Thanks for the terrific advice! I have planted seeds for a veggie garden but haven't ventured into planting a flower garden so that is definitely what I'll do.

To make sure I don't weed out the seedlings, I do patches of the same seeds - although it sounds like you are suggesting that I plant the seeds for the different phases at once in the area - is that correct? or do I plant the seeds at different times.

I live around the Vancouver Area of BC so weather similar to Seattle if you are in the US. Lots of rain, mild although we had freaky one day snow storms recently!

I will put down fresh soil in the areas I plan to seed. Should I mix in manure as well?

As for colours - I am a lover of bright colours -not pastels, so from a first glance at the list I can see that most are bright colours or can be bought in brights (I will have to look up some of the names). I also love having cut flowers to bring inside.

I have mostly sunny spots to seed - a couple of shady spots.

Oh and I don't dare plant morning glory LOL! as it is a weed here and takes over choking plants and making me curse at the ground!! LOL!

Thanks!! You've got me all excited to get out there and plant!!

Joni