This story category covers garden design and maintenance; it also covers tools and shortcuts that make gardens easier to care for.

Terracotta Pots - Casey Phaisalakani

Clever Ways To Use Ordinary Flower Pots

/8 Comments/in , , , /by
Here’s how to create instant impact in the garden by using the same ordinary element over and over again.

Terracotta Pots - Casey Phaisalakani

 

CHEAP & CHIC | It takes a certain kind of fearlessness to believe that you can make a cliché look fresh. The cliché I’m referring to here is the wide-rimmed dime-a-dozen terracotta pot found in every nursery and hardware store from there to China. You know the (inexpensive) kind I’m talking about, pictured here empty. If you’re like me, you cannot wait to replace yours with their more curvaceous Italian cousins, or some skinny Long Toms from England, or something stunning in Asian stoneware.  Read more

Blue Trees - Konstantin Dimopoulos

Shocking Colour Will Make Your Garden Pop

/1 Comment/in , , /by
A jolt of crazy colour is an unexpected and inexpensive way to make your garden pop.

Blue Trees - Konstantin DimopoulosCHEAP TRICK | A Vancouver architect friend of mine has a sideline as a garden photographer, and not long ago he grumbled to me that one of the magazines he works for in the U.S. never puts his photographs on their cover. “I take great plant portraits,” he said, “but unless I am willing to include a brightly coloured chair in my shots, not one of them will ever make it.” That’s because art directors know the swiftest way to catch the attention of gardeners cruising the magazine racks is to hit them with a jolt of unexpected colour. Read more

Nepeta, 'Walker's Low'

This Variety Of Nepeta Is A Bulletproof Plant

/0 Comments/in , , , /by
A gorgeous, indestructible, low-maintenance, high-performance, cost-effective garden: Is that too much to ask?

Nepeta, 'Walker's Low'

 

MONEY WELL SPENT | There are people who derive tremendous satisfaction from garden chores, but I’m not one of them. I love garden design and history, and enjoyed researching and planning our own garden with my husband, who is a garden designer. I loved choosing the plants and installing them, and I don’t mind occasional watering or weeding. But after that, I want to spend my time doing other things. I need my garden to be bulletproof: a gorgeous, indestructible, low-maintenance, high-performance environment—and of course I expect my investment in plants to be cost-effective. Read more

Garden Hose

Never Buy A Cheap Garden Hose—Ever!

/1 Comment/in , , /by
In which our writer experiences the horror and torment of buying an inferior product.

Garden HoseBUYER BEWARE | Sometimes a bargain is a terrible deal. Case in point: the 100-foot hose I bought on sale at Canadian Tire for $29. The Yardworks hose was advertised as “anti-kink” and “heavy-duty” and since it was only 29 bucks, I figured I had myself a winner. That is until I tried to use it. Read more

3 Top Trends In Gardening Right Now

/0 Comments/in , , /by
People are talking about perennial vegetables, backyard fowl and compost as rich as a Middle East despot.

GROW YOUR OWN | Though it may feel a bit premature given the weather recently, March is when all good backyard farmers gear up for the growing season, deciding what they’ll sow, starting seeds and enriching the soil for the nourishing work they’re going to need it to do.

Producing at least some of your own food is the fashionable thing to do right now, though the gardeners we know who toil in earnest care more about the environment, the provenance of their food and the fresh taste of fruits and vegetables than they do about being trendy. Still, it’s nice to know that of all the gardening stories we featured on Frugalbits this past year, the three highlighted below are trending topics when the subject of urban farming rolls around.

3 Gardening Trends That Sizzle Read more

Make Magic: Put String Lights In The Garden

/1 Comment/in , , /by
Inexpensive string lights in the garden make it feel magical, inviting and fun.

Cheap + Beautiful | Many of the clients in my residential landscape design practice can afford whatever kind of outdoor lighting they want, so it surprised— and delighted— me a few years ago when one of them suggested we find places to put white string lights in her large and rambling garden. “I love the way they look and the kind of feeling they bring to a garden,” she told me, rattling off a list of “happy, fun” string light sightings that included weddings outside, hill towns in Europe, those blocked-off laneways with shops and bistros in San Francisco.

My client may have been a romantic, but she was definitely on to something. Of all the ways to light a garden—up-lighting, down-lighting, moonlighting, etc.—few methods can match humble, cheap low-voltage white string lights for creating a genuine feeling of enchantment. Read more

Beautiful, Rich Compost

Nutrient-Rich Compost Is Free & Simple To Make

/4 Comments/in , , , , , , /by
Nutrient-rich compost is easy to make at home, plus it’s absolutely free.

Beautiful, Rich CompostIn the fall, I envy people who have red, gold and brown leaves carpeting their yards. Seeing them bagged at the curb makes me even more frustrated. With mainly conifers in my garden, I would love a convenient source of leaves to use as weed-suppressing mulch. Dried leaves are also wonderful for composting.

The best deal on earth, literally, may be compost. You throw in garbage and get back rich, black humus to use in the garden. And it’s not just for country folk and gardening fanatics anymore. A friend of mine just bought a compost bin for the roof deck of her downtown penthouse. Read more

Clothes line with colourful pegs

Why You Need A Clothesline In Your Life

/9 Comments/in , , , , , , /by
Save your clothes, cash and the environment with an indoor or outdoor clothesline.

Clothes line with colourful pegsWhat is it with us? We can’t wait to air our dirty laundry in public but scorn hanging clean laundry outdoors to dry. Years ago I lived in the heart of Montreal’s Latin Quarter yet had a clothesline running from my back balcony to a post on the lane—and so did everyone else. Here in Vancouver, I can’t remember the last time I saw laundry flapping in the wind. A 2007 StatsCan Environment Survey shows the percentage of B.C. residents drying clothes on a line or rack at just 54 percent; in P.E.I. it was 75 percent. Read more

Gravel Garden Path - R. Rule

Garden Lover’s Ground Cover: Pea Gravel

/6 Comments/in , , /by
The beauty of this inexpensive ground cover is that it complements whatever style of garden you have.

Gravel Garden Path - R. Rule

 

CHEAP + FABULOUS | Hardscape is pretty much everything in the garden that isn’t plants or water. It is the palette of materials a designer uses to create pathways and patios, arbors and decks; it is woodwork and metalwork and masonry. Hardscape elements are always best when they are linked together by a stylistic theme that is made better still when it is tied into the architecture of the residence.

One of my favorite hardscape materials is gravel. Read more