Landscaping on a Limited Budget
By lori brown
With winter yielding to spring, and daffodil and hyacinth bulbs peeking through the mulch, many of our thoughts have likely turned to warmer weather landscaping. Perhaps your ideal front yard design is one that mirrors the gardens of Versailles, while your backyard vision replicates the beauty of Butchart Gardens in Canada. But limited funds and time often make broadscale landscaping impossible. Plus, there is no need to replicate the flower gardens of famous palaces to transition your yard into a place of beauty and pleasure. In fact, there are many tasks that can be done, without breaking the budget, to spruce up the walking paths, expand color, and embed rooted plants that prevent erosion. Let’s consider a few tips to spruce up your yard quickly without feeling the pressure to assume another job.
Clean and Lean: More plants do not necessarily mean more beauty. You can tighten and brighten up a space that looks rough just by removing weeds or random plants and covering the ground with bags of mulch, including colored mulch in reds, browns, or black. This approach is particularly helpful for parts of the yard that do not get adequate sun or water to grow flowers or shrubs well. If you keep your weeds managed, then you only need to toss fresh mulch on the spot once or twice a year. If you decide you want a pop of color, then you can always go back to the space and plant some sort of easy groundcover that does not require much sun.
Rocks and Blocks: Instead of trying to tackle the entire yard at one time, consider working in small quadrants or circles. Choose a spot that desperately needs attention, clean out the weeds, add nutrients to your dirt, and choose landscaping pavers or rocks that can make a nice border for a small spot. Inside that space, plant a shrub and perennial bulbs that will return year after year. The shrub and bulbs will need limited care after both get rooted in the dirt. Do not forget to give your bulbs a strong covering of mulch to protect the bulbs in colder temperatures.
Pretty Potted Plants: If you have little interest in landscaping large plots of land, then keep it simple and make potted plants your best friend. First, visit your local thrift store or yard sales to find flower pots for cheap. Grab spray paint and transform the pots into whatever color you wish to see in your yard. Once they are fully dried, fill with potting soil and choose flowering annuals at your local home improvement store, or from your neighbor who is potentially dividing expanding plants. If your pot provides a bold pop of color, then keep your potted plant green (e.g., Hostas). You could also consider starting a small rose bush or azalea in your potted plant and once it grows to the point that it is almost too small for the pot, pull it out and plant it directly in your ground. It can then grow for years to come.
Big Borders: One of the hardest spaces to landscape is a deeply sloped section. In addition to being impossible to seed with grass and mow safely, the dirt in sloped sections can be hard and less plant friendly (how many of us have fallen down a hill while trying to water or mulch something we planted on a slope?) If that is the situation you are in, then toss out the plants and start looking for rocks and stones. Do you have a friend who is grading property and might have extra rocks embedded in their dirt? Do you have a body of water on your property with river stones? Or, have you considered visiting a local stone vendor to select less expensive ones that can create a bit of personality as you place them along the sloping border? (Quick Tip: For ultimate safety and security of the embedded stone, talk to a landscaping or engineering friend beforehand to make sure your rocks are embedded in dirt deeply enough and/or are heavy enough to avoid washing away with the first heavy spring storm).
The most important thing to remember about landscaping is that “Rome was not built in a day.” Spring 2023 will mark 3 years since my family planted evergreen shrubs on a sloping section of the yard to establish ground cover. The Blue Junipers still remain small, but the space is very slowly adding personality and removing the appearance of bare ground. It takes plants time to establish and flourish well, so do not grow weary with projects. Tackle things a little at a time, save up through the fall and winter to pay for larger tasks that are outside of your skill set, and remember that one lovely rose bush or those carefully placed tulips can brighten up your yard in unexpected ways. With time and effort, you can make your yard pop and become a place of beauty!
