How to Plant a Showy Flower Garden on a Budget

Gardening, like any hobby, can be costly and time-consuming. There are various ways to reduce the amount of time you spend. You can start by installing irrigation, using mulch after weeding, and planting low-maintenance native plants. Then there is the question of creating a showy flower garden while on a budget.

If I had the budget and a babysitter for the afternoon, I could spend hours and hundreds of dollars at the nursery. In fact, I have done this a number of times throughout the years, and it is as satisfying as it sounds. However, it’s even more satisfying when I get my hands on plants for a reasonable price—or even better, for free!

With everything else we buy getting more expensive, there are things we can do to save money in the garden. You don’t have to spend your whole budget to create a gorgeous and showy flower garden—you just need to get creative!

Here are some ways to save money while still achieving a beautiful and floriferous garden.

Make Your Compost and Mulch

If you want a space filled with colorful flowers, you’ll need healthy, fertile soil. Without the proper nutrients, your plants will languish, and your blooms, if there are any, won’t last long. Building up your soil is the first step in growing a healthy and productive garden. 

Making your compost is an ideal way to save money and dispose of food waste in an environmentally friendly manner. By composting, all the leftover food that leaves your house eventually becomes nutrient-rich fertilizer. It keeps more waste out of landfills and sets the stage for that spectacular flower garden. 

A compost bin is an initial expense, but many cities have sustainability initiatives that occasionally provide these at no cost. Other places to look for a free bin include waste disposal companies, local farms, and other community sustainability groups. You can also construct one on your own, if you are handy like that. 

Mulch is another item that comes in handy when you’re caring for a garden. It locks moisture into the soil and breaks down over time, adding more nutrients to help keep those flowers blooming. 

You can save money on mulch by making your own. You might have to wait for fall to get a truly decent amount of material for this, but it’s worth the wait for all the money and lifting it will save you. Gather natural materials like leaves, grass clippings, pine needles, and other items, and mix them up in a big pile. 

Keep the pile slightly moist, but not wet, and occasionally turn it to speed up the decomposition process. Depending on your climate, it will take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for things to break down. 

Once it turns dark brown to black, it’s ready to use. This type of mulch is more nutrient-rich and truly more helpful in the garden than the stuff you buy at the store. It also doesn’t contain the dyes that the commercial stuff typically does. 

Buy in Bulk

If you decide that making your mulch and compost doesn’t suit you, you’ll find it more affordable to buy it in bulk. While it may seem more expensive up front, these are things that you will use plenty of, and they go a long way toward growing healthy plants that produce lots of flowers. 

Another alternative, if you have the time and transportation, is to look for freebies. In my city, the solid waste facility turns yard debris into free mulch. You just have to go pick it up. You might be able to get free or low-cost manure from local farmers, too. They tend to have more than they need. 

Find Plants That Suit Your Climate

This is a significant benefit for a showy flower garden, as it protects your budget in several ways. Select things that thrive in your climate with minimal additional resources. Native plants are great for this, especially if you find those with dramatic flowering habits. 

You don’t have to stick strictly to natives, though. Many annuals thrive without extensive intervention in climates similar to their native habitats. If you don’t receive a lot of rain, look for plants that are well-adapted to drier climates. 

Growing things that thrive in your region without a ton of intervention is a great money saver. Your water bill will thank you. 

Propagate From Cuttings

Propagate from cuttings to increase the number in your garden. All you need is one of each type, and you can create a handful of the same simply by taking cuttings and growing new ones. 

Even better, if you have a gardening friend who is willing to let you take some snips, you can get them for free! I have a few neighbors who love to share bits and pieces of their favorites. We shop each other’s gardens from time to time, and everyone ends up with new things to add. 

Look For Secondhand Tools

Tools are another expense that adds to the financial burden of building a fabulous flower garden. You’ll need a shovel, a hand trowel, pruners, and a few other essential tools. All of these things add up, and before you know it, you’re over budget and regretting the whole thing!

You really can’t avoid acquiring these items, and there are others that you may find necessary as well. There’s no reason not to buy them secondhand, though. In fact, buying anything secondhand is excellent for the environment and your wallet. 

Search local yard sales and online marketplaces for the tools you need to get started. Make sure to clean the tools well before you use them. 

Grow From Seeds

In my opinion, growing your flowers from seeds is the single best way to save and still have a showy, beautiful garden. Growing from seeds takes a little longer, but it may surprise you how sturdy and resilient these plants are. 

Many plants don’t like root disturbance. When we purchase these from the nursery and transplant them, they may not be as vigorous as they would be if left in their natural environment. Directly sowing these seeds is the way to get hearty, healthy specimens. You also get far more plants at a significant savings, as seeds are inexpensive. 

Another fantastic aspect of growing from seeds is the selection. While your nursery might have a handful of options for each flower, you can access an incredible selection of seeds online. I love to plant beautiful and unusual varieties, and this is the best way to do this. 

Choose High Impact Plants

If you want to save on plants, make the ones that you do purchase count. I’m big on snapdragons for the spring. They grow easily from seed, they’re budget-friendly, and they produce numerous showy flowers for months. Sunflowers pack a punch, too. I planted a sunflower fence between my driveway and my neighbor’s driveway this year so we both get to enjoy the beautiful blooms. 

Zinnias flower well, and the more you cut them, the more they bloom. There are many flowers that exhibit this behavior. Consider flowering vines for significant impact, too. I love coneflowers and black-eyed Susans as well, for their long-lasting flowers. 

If you’re looking for a few shrubs that will up the impact of your garden, hydrangeas are hard to beat. Hibiscus are also great, and lilacs and azaleas are outstanding in the spring. Salvia is a fantastic bloomer that will flower all summer!

Skip over bulbs, as these typically don’t produce many flowers, and the ones they do produce don’t last long. Daffodils are beautiful, but they only show off for a few weeks in early spring, and then they’re gone. 

Attract Pollinators

This one goes hand in hand with planting natives and things that produce a lot of flowers for an extended period. If you attract pollinators, your plants will produce more flowers. This carries over from one year to the next.

This works in the long term because pollinated flowers produce seeds, and these seeds, in turn, create more plants. You can allow things to re-seed themselves, or you can help them along. In the long term, pollinators make a big difference in the health of the garden and the number of flowers. 

Another critical factor in attracting and retaining pollinators is the use of pesticides. Ensure that you purchase your plants from sources that do not use pesticides. Neonicotinoids are especially harmful and common. They show up in pollen and nectar and harm pollinator populations. 

Deadhead

Most plants will continue to produce more blooms as you remove the spent flowers. This is great in the cutting garden, and really, in any flower bed. The more you cut, the more energy they have to apply to setting new buds. So don’t leave those dead flowers hanging on, snip them off!

Save Seeds

Finally, let’s keep this floriferous garden blooming in the years to come by collecting and storing seeds. For many plants, and specifically heirloom varieties, you can buy them once and then collect them indefinitely. By harvesting seeds from your flowers, you save yourself that expense the following year. 

Collecting seeds is easy. As the season draws to a close, stop deadheading and allow the flowers to go to seed. As long as you deadhead, your plants will continue to flower. You want to enable them to go to seed before winter, when the cold can kill off the plant before they have a chance to ripen.