Money-saving tips and tricks with container gardening
Budget-conscious gardener and author Anya Lautenbach offers advice.
It’s not quite spring yet, but gardeners will already be thinking about how they can transform their containers into riots of colour during the warmer seasons ahead.
Yet, how often do you come out of the garden centre having spent a fortune, when you only went in for a tray of pansies? It’s so easy to be lured into making unnecessary purchases.
With this in mind, Anya Lautenbach, a self-taught gardener also known as the ‘Garden Fairy’, who shows her techniques to her avid social media followers and is known for her collection of money-saving gardening books, has now turned her attention to containers in her third book, The Money-Saving Gardener Containers.
“There is so much waste in spring,” says Lautenbach, who has just become an ambassador for the National Garden Scheme charity. “People go to garden centres because everyone’s craving colour and they fill their trolleys with bedding plants. But rather than looking at the short-lived and the quick colour, look at the long-term.”
Choose perennials
The bestselling author recommends planting perennials in pots which will come back year after year, rather than having to ditch bedding plants at the end of the season and start again.
“Perennials will be an investment in the springtime that will keep on giving. There are so many amazing perennial plants that people think wouldn’t grow in pots.”
The perennial of the moment seems to be erigeron, she agrees.
“It’s such a winner for so many people and is so easy to look after. In some cases, this plant flowers all year round. You can add extra interest by planting a mixed container, adding some varieties of ivy and muehlenbeckia (a deciduous shrub with small dark green leaves), which is relatively new and a lot of people ask me about this plant.”
Avoid impulse buys
“They say never go food shopping when you’re hungry. This is the same thing. Going to the garden centre in spring you are craving those juicy, fat, colourful plants and that can be so wasteful.
“We need to have a plan. Will that plant be short-lived? Look ahead, look long-term. If you buy something, think about it. Will that plant sort me out for one week, two weeks, or maybe a decade?”
Before you venture out, consider how many pots you have to fill, your colour scheme and how many plants you’ll need, she says.
“Get prepared. Be more mindful about it. Buy what you need instead of what you see or what you imagine you might need.”
Think like a plant
“Think, will that plant like my pots, are they big enough? Is this a plant that will outgrow the pot very quickly? Someone may love delphiniums but they aren’t great for pots so it will be totally wasteful.”
Save money with plug plants
These are smaller plants, widely available in garden centres in spring, which will need some initial protection – so you’ll have to start them off inside – but they will soon grow on and are much cheaper than established bedding plants which you’ll be buying in three months’ time.
“On sunny days you can place them outside by your house wall and allow them to harden off, bringing them inside at night when the temperature drops,” she says.
Consider bare root shrubs
There’s still just time to buy bare root roses and shrubs in early spring, which are cheaper than those in containers. But once you’ve planted them up in a suitable pot – as soon after purchase as possible – they will get a head start on other specimens. They are widely available online.
Hunt for seedlings
While some gardeners buy plants in spring, Lautenbach goes on the hunt for seedlings in her own garden.
“Things like forget-me-nots are beautiful in pots and they self-seed all around the garden. Obviously some people won’t have them but you have to think long-term. So buy a packet of seeds and sow them – they will definitely self-seed and the following year you will be collecting your free seedlings.”
Self-seeded forget-me nots can be planted effectively in pots containing tulips, or grow them individually in a pot, started off as seedlings, she suggests.
If you have snowdrops, they are easy to transplant, by digging them up and putting them in a pot for all to see on the patio table, she suggests.
Once they have finished flowering you can plant them back in the garden to recharge, she recommends.
Buy compost in bulk
If you don’t have space or time to make your own compost, form a collective so you can buy your compost in bulk, which is much cheaper, she says. Go to friends and neighbours to see how much they might require and order accordingly. Landscaping companies and online outlets may be willing to deliver.
Go to social media for containers
Gardeners who may be downsizing will advertise pots and other gardening ephemera on sites such as Facebook Marketplace, while other local online groups may also prove fruitful, she says, but you need to be pro-active.
“Most of my pots are pre-owned. If you buy from people who are downsizing, you can get some amazing bargains.
“My top tip is not to sit and wait for those people to say, ‘Oh, I have a pot’. Anyone who wants a pot needs to actively say to people, ‘Is anyone in the village getting rid of good-quality pots? Or is anyone downsizing in the village? I can happily collect or get it delivered’.
“Honestly, you can find the most incredible pots for next to nothing. But ask actively, and don’t wait for April and May, because by then you will have no chance.”
In late winter, before many people are thinking about the garden, look out for pre-loved garden furniture, equipment like lawnmowers and good-quality garden tools and you may grab yourself a bargain.
Repurpose items
Rather than buying plastic seed trays and pots to transplant your seedlings into, use old egg cartons, yogurt pots, milk cartons and cardboard toilet roll tubes to house your young plants.
The Money-Saving Gardener Containers by Anya Lautenbach is published by DK, price £16.99. Available now
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