Buying Garden Plants For Less

Mid- to late-summer is a good time of the year to get bargains on garden plants. Often the garden centers and chain retailers are marking them down drastically at this time to get rid
of them before the fall. The best deals will be on annuals, but perennials can be a good deal too. Annuals can be bought to fill in around any plants that you have lost or around perennials that
have stopped flowering. Perennials are a great deal when you can get them at a discount because they bloom year after year. Make sure you get plants suitable for your climate. Some plants are not hardy in the north or can’t take the heat of the south. Often garden centers will stock some plants unsuitable for their climate mostly because customers are asking for them – not because they are suitable. These types of plants will not be a good deal at any price. Swapping plants is another good way to get plants for little or nothing. Do you have extras of some plants? Your friends or neighbors may have something else they would be glad to swap them for. You can also contact your local garden club to find out when their next “swap meet” is.If you are not repelled by “dumpster diving” you can find some real deals after hours at the dumpster outside your local garden center or chain stores. I know this because when I was quite young I worked for a garden center chain and we threw out lots of perfectly salvageable plants. For instance, when the packaged roses or packaged shrubs were getting a bit past their prime in late spring we loaded them all in a wagon (hundreds at a time) and brought them to the dumpster. Sometimes the employees would return after work and pull out a few to put in their home gardens. Most of them survived just fine. Why send perfectly good plants to the landfill? That’s not good for the environment or the financial health of the planet.Thanks to reader Cathy Besharah for suggesting this topic.

Scrooge