As we mentally remove our winter coats and boots, we start thinking about spring and what we are going to plant in our gardens, how much, in which corner and what color. However, plants are expensive and, with the economy, our wallets may be tighter than usual and it may feel frivolous to pay full price for plants at our local home improvement store. Don’t be discouraged….The pursuit and chasing after plants is like a treasure hunt to see how low we can pay for healthy and gorgeous plants.

Many universities have their own horticulture shows at which plants are offered at great discounts. In addition, botanical gardens offer a wide variety of unusual plants that can be purchased for a fraction of the cost. Botanical gardens in major cities are staffed by experts who know how and what to plant and the results are very unusual and hardy plants.

Every town has City, Parks and Recreation grounds workers who remove dead plants, recycle plants around city beds, or even plant numerous plants on highways, containers that populate downtown buildings or median islands that border city streets. Many of the city workers discard dead plants but if you observe carefully, it’s only the outside of the plant that is dead; the roots are well preserved and healthy. In Washington, D.C., I remember that if we spied on when city workers would come and change the plants in different seasons, we could take home hundreds of bulbs from discarded tulip plants that adorned city planters.

Water Resources also offer gardening workshops and offer reduced priced plants. A quick phone call to your local water resources will let you know when they offer seminars during which they demonstrate native plants or bulbs that are appropriate for your local weather. Often these same departments will offer seminars on rain barrels and water management. They usually have a good supply of plants that are on sale.
In some localities, prisons also offer plant fairs at extremely reduced prices. In prison, prisoners as part of the workforce, sometimes re-educate dogs, work with leather goods, sew flags, and some garden. The plants that they grow can be purchased for extremely cheap prices.

Garden clubs abound with enthusiasts who grow any type of plants: orchids, ferns, rose bushes, bromeliads, native plants, etc.. If you watch in your newspaper when they are going to have their annual sale, the plants that are sold are grown by experts and are extremely healthy as well as cheap. Many clubs have plant exchanges where you can bring a cutting from one of your plants and go exchange it for another. It enhances the variety of your garden at a really affordable price.

Loews Garden Center has a recycling section in the back of their garden department which sells perfectly good plants at up to 75% of the price. Those plants may look droopy, have lost some of their leaves, or may not appear as fresh as the others, but there is nothing wrong with them. If you plant them in good soil and cut the leaves and stems at the ground level, those perky little plants will reward you with numerous growths.

Perhaps the city where you live puts on a “Green Fest.” In St. Petersburg, Florida, the Green Thumb Festival attracts more than 20,000 people with vendors of every kind of plant and garden enthusiasts come with carts to carry their loot. The city puts on seminars dealing with friendly to not so friendly critters that visit your yard, how to grow herbs, how to preserve bulbs, how to make mulch, etc. They even distribute free mulch. The thrill of attending one of these is finding the wide variety of plants and flowers that are not usually sold in stores. A feast for all plant lovers.

So don’t despair that perhaps this year you don’t have the budget to purchase as many plants as you want. When you compare the prices at your local home improvement store and see how much a plant cost, then a little research will go a long way towards populating your garden with beautiful plants that you acquired, through your genius treasure hunt, at a fraction of the cost.

So, this coming spring, envision your game plan. Don’t let the economy dictate how much you can afford to plant in your garden. If you follow your scavenger hunt, you can be even more prolific because you’ll have gotten three to four times the amounts of plants than in prior years. Once in the ground, there won’t be any difference with which plant came from where, except your purse strings will be fuller to purchase more accessories for your garden. Happy Hunting!!!

By: Colette Jaccard