Free and Cheap Plants
For the Frugal Home Landscaper

With a little ingenuity you can populate your garden with free and inexpensive plants without having to skimp on quality or diversity.

Free for the taking
Taking cuttings of divisions is one of the most reliable ways to get a second specimin of a plant. Most home gardeners have more plants than they need, so don't be shy about asking for cuttings or seeds. Another source of free plants is a local gardening club, where members often swap plants to diversify their gardens on the cheap.

As perishable items, plants only last so long on the on the rack at the garden center before they have to be deeply discounted or thrown out. Ask at the garden center or hardware store if they might be throwing out any tattered-looking plants. The plants can often be brought back to health with a little care.

Don't miss the end-of-season sales. Every few weeks from early spring into autumn a new batches of plants are brought in to replace those whose prime blooming time has past. Perrenials that have finished blooming for the year are good candidates for end-of-season purchase. By June, the primroses may be nothing but a few uninteresting leaves, but they'll come back strong the next spring.

Garage sales are another chance to pick up cheap plants. Someone moving to another house would often rather sell the house plants than pack them. You can always ask if they have any plants they'd like to get rid of.

Public plants
Depending on local regulations, you may even be allowed to take cuttings and collect seeds from plants in public parks and gargens. Always ask first, though, or you could end up paying a fine. Even if you're only collecting seeds, ask the goundskeepers first, as some public gardens re-use their seeds.

Wild plants
Wild plants may appear to be free for the taking, but before you go out and start digging in your local wildlands, be sure harvesting is allowed in the area and that you're not up-rooting an endangered species.

Fast spreaders
Another characteristic that qualifies a plant as inexpensive is how quickly it will cover an area. Fast growth is great, but beware of plants that are considered "invasive" in your area. Certain aggressive growers may be cheap in the beginning, but they'll become a maintenance headache within two or three years. Some fast-growing but non-invasive species are the Anemone japonica (Anemone x hybrida), butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii), Clematis "montana" and "tangutica" varieties, Mallow (Lavatera), and Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus). Keep in mind, though, that many fast growers are not as strong as slower growing plants and may not last as long. This is particulary true with trees: water oaks, tulip poplars, Bradford pears, and Leyland cypress grow quickly, but can be blown over relatively easily in a storm.

Inexpensive species
Some plants are inexpensive simply because they're well known and easy to grow, so garden centers are able to sell them in large quantities. Among these are:

• African marigold (Tagetes erecta)
• Nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus)
• Salvia (Salvia splendens)
• Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus),
• Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis)
• Field Poppy (Papaver rhoeas L. Occurrence)
• Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)
• Lady's Bedstraw (Galium verum)
• Maiden pinks (Dianthus deltoides)
• Miniature sedums
• Pansies
• Geraniums
• Impatiens (Impatiens wallerana)
• Thyme
• Threadleaf coreopsis or tickseed (Coreopsis verticillata),
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
• Zinnias (Zinnia elegans)

A word of caution
Keep in mind, the cheapest plants may not always be the best investment. When considering a sad-looking plant on discount at the hardware store, make sure its condition is due to neglect or improper care, which you can set right again, rather than to disease, which may be passed to other plants in your garden. Plants with spots, fungus, or that are crawling with insects could easily do harm to your whole garden. If you do buy such a plant, quarantine it until you can restore it to health.

With a bit of looking and asking around, you'll be able to fill your garden with cheap, yet high quality plants within a year.