Spruce up your yard on a budget
Posted by Kevin Mulligan on May 26, 2010 in Personal Finance
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Kevin Mulligan is a debt reduction champion with a passion for teaching people how to budget and stay out of debt. He’s the creator of the personal finance blog No Debt Plan.
There were times I stood in silent amazement at some of the yards in our neighborhood. Flowers abound, colors amaze, and the grass is perfectly manicured.
How much must they spend on that?, I often pondered. Then I would continue walking the dog back to our house. A house surrounded by the standard “builder’s fare” of landscaping: green flat shrubs to prevent hill erosion, pink azeleas in front of the windows, and short, stubby, always-green shrubs in front of the azaleas.
Unimaginative and plain green to say the least.
Being financially savvy and fully aware of our budget limitations, not to mention my overall frugal nature, I decided to see if we could bring up the quality of our yard without breaking the bank.
Here’s what I learned.
Three Frugal Landscaping Tips
Buy Cheap, Colorful Plants
One of the easiest ways to move your yard away from a bland green canvas is to add color. Lots of color. Color that pops, color that contrasts against the rest of your landscaping.
Anytime my wife and I take a trip to the local garden center my wallet quivers with fear.
But when my wife and I went with the goal of finding some cheap, colorful plants, we were happily surprised. We were able to snag some yellow snapdragons for two baskets that are mounted into the brick of our garage for 50 cents per basket!
Those baskets are notoriously hard to keep plants alive in (thanks to being mounted directly next to brick and getting lots of sun and our forgetting to water them regularly). At only 50 cents a pop we could replace the plants every two weeks for $26 per year (and we wouldn’t even need that much thanks to winter taking a solid 3 months out of the year).
Add New Pine Mulch or Pine Straw
As we added colorful plants throughout our landscaping we started to notice how bland our pine straw looked. It was from the previous season and had faded from brown to an ugly grayish color. Even plain green shrubs don’t look that great against faded pine straw.
We decided pine mulch was easier to spread and would make for a nice change of pace. We picked up several bags for less than $3 each, and spread them throughout the flowerbeds surrounding our home.
The impact was better than I expected. The dark, rich colors of the pine straw really made the new colors pop.
Save Time and Money: Buy Perennial Flowers
There are two types of flowers: annuals (which die after one season) and perennials (which return every season).
You can see where I’m going here. Buying perennials, in theory, should save you both time and money. You won’t have to constantly be pulling up dead plants and replacing them with new ones the next season. This will save your back and your bank account.
Of course there are more advanced strategies for perennials that you’ll need to consider. They grow and bloom at different times in the year. You can’t just fill your landscaping with one type of perennial — you’ll have overwhelming color for a short period of time in the year and then back to nothing.
So use various perennials as the foundation of your landscaping, and add your cheap, colorful pop with annuals.
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Ethel Gray
