Olivia Harvey is a freelance writer and award-winning scriptwriter from outside Boston, Massachusetts. She’s a big fan of scented candles, getting dressed up, and the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley. You can make sure she’s doing okay via Instagram and/or Twitter.
Landscaping can be pricey, but there are ways to lessen the expense if you exert a bit of extra effort and some ingenuity. Here are our favorite ways to landscape on a budget.
Flowering plants with big, bright blooms (as shown in the first image above) help fill space and draw the eye in. Look for colors that complement or offset the shades of your home’s siding or stucco.
Rather than buying brick or other garden border materials, find stones for free and use them to create an attractive divider between the garden and the lawn.
Divide plants, like hostas or lillies, and spread them throughout your yard. You’ll save money by turning one plant into several. Dividing plants is pretty easy; just dig up the entire plant, making sure to keep the root-ball intact. Then carefully split up the roots and stems until you have separated the plant into several chunks. Each group can be re-planted, and should continue to grow if watered and maintained appropriately. Read more here.
Ask your neighbor if you can take a few cuttings from their rose bushes, then use this tutorial to learn how to propagate them.
Learn to compost! Put garden and kitchen waste to good use and help add important nutrients back into your topsoil. Learn more here.
Curbly Tip: Compost starter is extremely useful. We like Jobe’s Organic Compost Starter because it’s inexpensive and gets great reviews.
Seedlings will take a bit longer to grow, but they’re much less expensive.
Use this tutorial to find out how to make a rolling raised garden bed out of a couple of wooden pallets. Wooden crates can be turned into planters!
Tool sharing is a gray way to save money. Rent a wood chippers or soil aerator, and split the costs with friends. You can also split seed packs, plant packs, and more.
Yard sales, flea markets, and Craigslist are all great resources for finding really affordable pots and plant containers.
This will lower your water bills (and help the environment too!). Get the rain barrel tutorial here. Use a downspout adapter to direct water flow.
You know how sometimes you just get tired of looking at boring, plain, red bricks? Well, guess what? Other people do to! Which is why those materials can often be found for cheap, or free. But with a fresh coat of paint, you can turn them into something special.
Try painting river rocks white for a clean, modern-looking ground cover option. Or add pops of bright color to an old brick wall. Here’s a good primer on how to correctly paint these type of materials so that the top coat will last.
Wood shipping pallets can be found for free almost anytime (or bought for cheap). Look for them by the side of the road, or at warehouse loading docks (make sure to ask before you take them; usually people will be happy to let you have them). These wood structures are built to be used outside, and can easily be turned into simple pathways (as above) or other outdoor landscaping features.
Simple, carefully-placed lighting can make even the most ordinary yard look amazing. And the best thing? Lights have gotten really affordable over the last ten years, thanks in part to the advancement of LED technology. In many cases, you may not even need additional electrical wiring, because LEDs use such little electricity that they can be solar powers. Try a rope light along the edge of a garden, or spot lights to feature large plants or trees.
Check out our other landscaping and gardening posts here!
This post was originally published in May 2015, but we’ve updated it with new information for this year.
As a gardener and urban farmer you come to appreciate and treasure compost, or as I affectionately call it, “Black Gold”.
Composting itself is actually pretty easy and there are several methods and solutions. Whether you own a full-on farm, or live in a tiny apartment, there is no reason you can’t or shouldn’t be composting.
In a world obsessed with “greening,” it’s scary to think about how much food we throw away. A friend of mine started a small scale composting business last year by collecting food scraps from local restaurants and was able to save 111.3 tons of food waste from ending up in the dump and turned it into glorious, nitrogen rich compost. If that’s not motivation to start composting, I don’t know what is!
Here a few of the options available when composting.
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The most straightforward way of composting involves dedicating an area, usually 25 sq. ft or so to being a compost pit, any larger and it makes it pretty difficult to aerate. You start by adding layers of organic material, usually browns (old leaves, bark, etc) followed by greens (grass cuttings and vegetable scraps) topped by soil. Continue on building the layers until it’s around 4 to 5 ft high and then turn it every 2-3 days with a fork for the first month, keeping it moist, but not wet. After the first month taper off till you’re turning once or twice a month and in 3-4 months you’ll have a soil-ready compost, less if you decide to add a commercially available compost activator. See more at Nature Hacks.
Also known as the “no turn” method. It’s similar to the layered method above, but the idea is you have three bins, you keep adding to the first until it’s full, then move to the next bin. While it’s the most effortless method, it’s also the longest and it can take as long as 3 years to decompose! See more at Backyard Feast
If, like me, you don’t have three years to wait around you can combine the first two methods together, turning twice a week and making sure that the heap remains warm.
Trenching, as discussed in our DIY garden beds post, trenching is a way of composting by digging a trench roughly 3-feet deep and filling it with compostable scraps, covering them with alternate layers of soil. Once completed leave them for 2-3months to break down and then plant your vegetables directly into the bed. See more at Good Life Garden
Worm Composting, and vermicomposting yield nutrient-rich castings, and probably the most fertile soil of the above methods, the downside is that it’s not as scalable as the above methods, but perfect for small gardens and apartment dwellers. Red wriggler earthworms are used to break down kitchen scraps into these castings and nutrient-rich worm tea, which can be used as an organic fertilizer. The downside is that the worms don’t have a large appetite so you can’t feed them a lot of food at once, you should also avoid all types of citrus, meat, or onions when feeding them. The plus side is that it’s also one of the least odorous methods of composting and why it’s become popular with many apartment dwellers using it to clear off kitchen scraps.
If you’re looking to add some curb appeal to your home, planting a shrub can definitely accomplish this. When choosing a shrub to plant, though, it’s important to choose wisely or you could end up wasting time and money on plants that aren’t worth the effort.
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Landscaping and plant care can be expensive, especially if those plants develop issues that create more problems for your property. I spoke with a few real estate and professional landscaping experts about the pesky types of shrubs to avoid planting in your yard.
Boxwoods are evergreen shrubs that tend to grow in warmer climates. You’ll need well-drained soil to grow this shrub, but this requires a lot of maintenance and patience that you may not have — particularly if you’re trying to sell a home.
“Boxwoods are one of those plants that people love because they look great when they’re young, but then get old and boring,” says Melody Estes, a landscape design gardening supervisor and consultant at The Project Girl. “They also take a long time to grow, so if you plant one now, it may not have matured by the time you’re ready to sell your house.”
Azaleas are beautiful shrubs that range in size from one to 15-feet wide. These plants thrive in warm climates, and as a flowering plant, they produce foliage in an array of colors. Still, the beauty may not be worth the effort since this shrub is very sensitive to weather and soil changes, making it easily susceptible to disease and damage.
“Azaleas tend to die off after just two years,” says Estes. “That means every year you’ll need to replace them with new ones, which will cost more than just buying a different kind of flower altogether.”
Burning Bush delivers incredible fall colors even from a distance. While this shrub may very well be the MVP of the fall season, a real estate expert claims that you won’t be able to watch much of your favorite teams during Sunday night football due to the rigorous maintenance requirements it has.
“Burning Bush grows fast, so it typically needs regular pruning,” says John Maxim, an expert house flipper and founder of four real estate companies. “I also like to think of the burning bush as the fall poinsettia, since it can be highly toxic to dogs and cats if ingested by them.”
Shrubs are an important part of a home’s landscaping, but you may want to avoid the toxic ones, especially if you’re selling a home to a family that may have small children. Jennifer Reddington, a licensed real estate advisor at Compass Real Estate, cautions against shrubs like wisteria, lily of the valley, and oleander.
“They are all beautiful plants, especially when flowering, but they can be dangerous if ingested,” says Reddington. “Although it seems obvious that you wouldn’t eat a flower, you never know what a little kid or your pet might do.”
Privet shrubs are often used as a filler to avoid empty space, but these plants can grow quickly, ranging from 4 to 15 feet.
“I recommend shying away from using this plant because these shrubs grow incredibly fast and require a lot of upkeep year-round,” says Beatrice de Jong, a real estate broker and Consumer Trends expert at Opendoor. “If you’re a busy homeowner, I suggest choosing a shrub that doesn’t require as much attention, like a hydrangea bush, which also adds a beautiful pop of color.”
Where you live, the weather, type of soil and yard size are all factors that can impact whether a planted shrub does well in the environment or not.
“When it comes to finding the ideal shrub to plant, the elements to be considered when selecting the right species vary a lot,” says Jonathan Fargion, an Italian landscape designer. “Always consider the growing trajectory of the shrub because you don’t want to end up with a big tree that is casting shade all over your small yard.”
Fargion also recommends thinking about the fruits a certain species can produce, especially if the plant is close to a patio that can get stained by those fruits.
“Avoid shrubs that will be hard to manage and won’t compliment your space,” adds Fargion. “Otherwise, plan away and have fun with colors, seasonality, scent, and more.”
Ready or not, fall is upon us… and our gardens are changing. Odds are, most of the summer color has left your garden – but that doesn’t mean that you have to give up for the season! There are plenty of wonderful ways to give it a boost of fall color. Keep reading to check out ten incredibly inspiring autumn gardens.
1. Multi-colored ornamental grasses combined with purples and yellows are a great way to lend a fall feel to your garden. [Photo: via Nadyana]
2. Here is some beautiful urban garden inspiration for fall… supplement evergreen shrubs with ornamental cabbage. [Photo: The Garden Glove]
3. Window boxes can be filled with ornamental cabbage, gourds and flowering vines. [Photo: Southern Living]
4. Lamb’s Ear adds texture to this garden that’s filled with Autumn Joy Sedum, Echinacea and more. [Photo: Sunset]
5. Autumn Joy Sedum is a stunning choice for any fall garden, especially combined with other greens and purples. It is very hardy, and enjoys dryer soil. [Photo: North Coast Gardening]
6. Ornamental grasses can be quite stunning on their own… choose a handful of different varieties as shown above. [Photo: Home Depot Garden Club]
7. Add a few pumpkins to your patio garden for instant color. [Photo: Suburban Bitches]
8. You don’t necessarily have to stick to smaller plants… consider bushes and trees that change color in the fall as well. [Photo: Southern Living]
9. Purples can be very autumnal, especially when combined with beautiful ornamental grasses. [Photo: via Gardening Prof]
10. This vibrant color combination is proof that warmer reds and oranges aren’t the only option for fall. [Photo: BHG]
