If you’re not sure where to get started with creating a lovely garden when you’re got a tight budget to stick to, I’m here for you. I’ve personally planted and tended to my own garden, which started out as nothing more than a scrap of wasteland and now it’s full of shrubs, flowers and tress.
The best bit? It didn’t cost a fortune to create it. While certain items do cost some money (I’m thinking decking, paving – all the heavy landscaping bits), the elements that you can save the most on are the plants themselves and all the pretty flowers. Here’s how…
General Maintenance Is Your Best Friend
I’m going to kick things off by saying that general maintenance is your best friend when it comes to creating a pretty garden. While you might not think so, this is over half of the battle because keeping it in good condition is what sets the foundation for you to build upon.
You should be heading out once a week in the summer and spring time to cut your grass so that it keeps to a reasonable level. You should be pulling weeds out whenever you see them peeking through, and you should ensure that you are watering your grass using rainwater or waste dishwater through the warmer months to keep it green.
The more you do this general upkeep of your garden, the less time it will take. Trust me – I spent hours getting on top of the garden when I went away earlier this year but now that everything is pruned and trimmed, it’s much quicker to maintain.
Plant And Care For Some Flowers
Flowers aren’t that expensive, and if you get a couple they really add some colour to your garden space which it needs. You can go for an explosion of different colours, or you can create a peaceful look by choosing all the same colour (such a crisp white or soothing lavender) depending on what you want your garden to look like.
You can either head down to your local B&M or The Range, which are often the chapest place to buy bedding plug plants, and just see what they have on offer. Or you can save even more money by buying flower and veg seeds and growing your own vegetables for pennies.
There’s nothing better than harvesting and eating your own produce that you’ve grown at home. A great way to get the most out of your freshly grown fruit and veg is to protect your crops by installing fruit cages or using mesh tunnels. Either way, they’ll protect your crops from birds and bugs, meaning more fresh produce for you to enjoy.
When growing fruit, veg and flowers from seed, you can grow hundreds of plants for just the cost of a packet of seeds to fill your garden with colour and produce. Plus, there’s no effort required for this option: just rake over the ground and sprinkle on the seeds and see what happens. I was surprised when I did this with some Sweet William seeds and left them to it – they came up the following year looking absolutely beautiful and they’ve even self-seeded and flowered again this year. Free flowers are always my favourite!
Likewise, spring flowering bulbs are a low-cost way to get a pretty display in your garden year after year. I’ve planted some budget bundles of daffodils and tulips in my garden so that there’s a succession of blooms at a time of year where the garden is rather sparse otherwise.
Another way to get some free plants is to ask around and find out if your friends or family members have any leftover plants you can use. Or you could take come cuttings of their shrubs to grow your own from scratch rather than spending money on bigger plants at a garden nursery.
For example, these hops in my garden were from my neighbours garden. I wanted it to climb a trellis and it has grown into a large plant that gives lots of coverage to keep our garden looking lush and green and hiding the bits I don’t want to see (the trellis and shed). Plus, I now get dried hop garlands for free to use in floral displays in the autumn and winter.
Look Into Getting A Shed
The next thing that I’m going to recommend is that you get a shed for your garden space. I know that some of these can be expensive, so it’s going to be a case of doing your research and seeing what you can get to fit in your budget, even if it’s just a small one or a second-hand one.
I got one that had previously been used in my in-laws’ garden and then my brother’s garden before beinging handed down to me and all it needed wa a bit of patching up and painting to make it good again.
If you fancy yourself as quite the handyperson and you think you would be able to, you could build your own shed. Have a look at shed bases and other materials needed to build it, then work out what the price difference is to build vs buy.
The reason to add a shed is that it ensures there’s nothing messy hanging around your garden, which makes the whole space feel nicer. You can stow away the tools that’ll make it easier to tend to your garden, along with any bags of compost, old pots to reuse next year and so on. A tidy garden = a gorgeous garden, in my opinion!
I hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the ways that you can create a lovely garden on a tight budget. Sure, it can take some time to make this happen and you’ve got to dedicate yourself to putting in the effort regularly, but as long as you do this your garden is going to turn out wonderfully. Good luck!
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