Bargain Hunting.

Following on from SteveR's thread about bargains at Aldi.

I make a point of not buying expensive plants that are well established, especially from Garden Centres. I know these places Have to make a profit, but I am often staggered by the prices charged. For the cost of one special plant, you can usually buy a good assortment of seed, plugs, bulbs etc. As a novice gardener, I simply cannot afford to invest large sums in one plant that may, for several reasons die.

Those of you that have read my thread about my new plot, will know that I am very serious about my garden. I have a large plot and decent sized garden, plus my polytunnel. My aim is to make my garden very colourful, grow veg for my family, grow flowers for cutting and young plants for sale from my home.

What I have done, is spent time on finding the best price I can, by using the internet. If you are a member here, you have internet access. Which means that you are not limited to the local garden centre for what you want/need for your garden.

I have found several trade suppliers that will supply direct to the end user. Obviously you don't get the wholesale price, but recent experience has shown that they are often cheaper than local places. Good idea to check delivery charges before you commit to buy.

I have found a few good bargains on Ebay. Check the sellers feedback before you commit to buy.

The big DIY chains have garden centres in some of thier stores. I have found that the plants are often sadly neglected. Probably because they do not have staff that know about plants or they just do not care about them. I have had several real bargains when looking through these places. I just bought two trays of 6 Primulas that had been reduced from £3.00 per tray to 50 pence per tray. Some of the leaves had gone brown and they had clearly not been watered for some time. I bought them, took them home and watered them immediately. That was three days ago. They all now have new leaves and buds on them. At that price I thought it was worth a gamble.

I am very lucky that I have been able to spend money on my garden. Not every one is in that position, some of us have to work to a tight budget. Some of us also like to adapt and improvise. Rather than buying established plants, I have invested quite a lot of money on seed, bulbs and plugs. Besides the bedding and veg plants, I have a lot of perrenials that will hopefully be my stock plants.

Does anybody here get together with neighbours, local allotment holders etc to buy a bigger quantity and share out? Local plant swaps? Recycling centres? What do other people do to find the real bargains for thier gardens?

Not sure if I can post a list of links to suppliers I use. I think some of them may be helpful to other members. Would one of the moderators let me know if that would be ok please?

Chopper.

 

I would say post them Chopper, many people here post links and or references to commercial sites they have used, my Aldi topic mentioned them after all.

Steve...

 

I very rarely pay garden centre prices. Here's my tricks, in no particular order:

1. Look out for small independent nurseries, often in the corner of someone's farm. There are loads, I've lived in several parts of the country over the years, and never found it hard to find these places once you wander out of town a bit. There is one near us, its been there all my life at least. I went in looking for Sage. The young lad shouted 'Dad, this lad's looking for sage, have we got any?'. An old man hobbled over and led me through his house into his back garden where there were hundreds of shabby looking plants growing in what looked like miniture black bin liners. He said 'Are any of these what you're after lad?'. I spotted what looked like sage, smelt it, confirmed its ID, and came away with three well established plants for a fiver. They were bigger than you'd you'd get in the more commercial nurseries for a fiver each.

2. Cuttings off friends and family. If like me you're not much good at getting cuttings to work, see if you can get the friend/relative to do it for you. I've had some cracking plants out of my dad's garden, particularly perenials which he tends to just drive the spade straight through the middle, uproot half, stick it in a carrier bag and give it to me.

3. Aldi, Morrisons, Lidl, Wilkos, Yorkshire Trading (if you're in the area). These places tend to sell fruit trees/bushes for a fiver each, or sometimes £3 or less. Not always the vareities you're looking for but good all the same, and I once couldn't believe my luck when Aldi had Cox's Orange for a fiver a piece, several of which are now in what will one day become my orchard.

4. If you're careful, you can get good deals from the pound shop or B&M. There you can get fruit bushes for pence, but half of them are so far gone there is little hope for them. Sometimes they are ok though, and if there is a hintg of green left on them or the wood is still pliable, they usually recover with a bit of TLC.

5. For annual herbs, the supermarkets often sell nasty force grown herbs for pence. When you get them home, you can cut off the top half of the growth and use it in your dinner. Then you carefully bust up the root ball and plant it up in a large container. A bit of TLC usually results in a good crop for the rest of the summer.

6. Never tried this myself, but my neighbour did. Collect seeds from flowers you like while out and about in the countryside. He would collect the seed, shove the seeds in his pocket, then when he got home he'd throw them randomly onto his garden. His philosophy was that if the conditions were right, they'd sort themselves out. If the conditions were wrong, he'd never get them to grow anyway so no point putting in the effort. He had one of the nicest gardens I've ever seen.

 

There was something mentioned the other night on TV about people joining together to buy items at cheaper prices (Think it was the "Rip off Britain" TV show) Thats a good idea and worth investigating if for example your planning on buying a greenhouse or shed and you can find someone local to you who wants to do the same. Maybe then a deal could be struck on the basis that give me a good discount and my friend/friends will also buy one...with the same discount.

I have also noticed recently and have been looking into discounts with seed/plants/sundries suppliers who offer organisational discounts. So an allotment could get together and order in bulk for a discount. Deals are varied, some will deliver to one place only and expect you to pass them out, others will ship direct to each individual. It could be worth investigating by Gardeners Corner staff as I think a better deal than those currently being advertised on suppliers sites could be negotiated due to the mass of members we have here. I'm almost certain these suppliers would take a further step and sponsor GC too...well if you dont ask...you dont get

Steve...[hr]
I got two Bramley apple trees from Aldi last week £4 each, last year I had two Braeburn apple trees, there where quite a few varieties to choose from, and yes Coxs orange was one of them.

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_17569.htm

Steve...

 

Most suppliers will do a deal for a bulk buy, even if they don't advertise the fact. I think its a good idea Steve to see if we can get a bulk deal on stuff we want. On a car forum that I used to use there was the occassional thread asking for members to expess their interest in a particular component, because some bulk supplier would do a special order but only if they got a certain number of requests.

Another trick is to haggle. I know its not the way in Britain, but if you have the confidence it sometimes works. I got a six foot tall well established bamboo from B&Q for a tenner (usually £40, reduced to £20) because some of the side shoots looked dead and there were nettles growing in the pot.

 

http://www.vegetableseeds.net/

a good cheap supply of veg seeds, they do discounts for allotment growers.
[hr]

Our local garden center has a plastic recycling bin, we get loads of pots and carry trays there for nothing, a bit of a wash and they're good to go.

 

It was over a month ago but the deal may still be on, Makro were selling 100litre bags of compost for £6ish, buy one get one free. I'm an amateur but that sounds like a great deal to me.*

Doesn't include VAT like.

 

Our local Gardening Society has regular 'bring and buy' evenings in the Summer
where I usually pick up low priced plants or swap them and I sometimes pass stuff to my
pals who garden - but I also pay relatively high prices if I want something a bit different
or special. The problem with buying off ebay has been the postage costs which are often
highr than the cost of the plants.

 

Hi, I have found a Fiskars Garden Tools set on the http://www.hereforaday.com/ website its over 50% off the RRP but only available for 24hrs, I was wondering if anyone knew if it was any good? I want one which will last as I'm buying it for my mum. Any advice would be great thank you

 

I made a small order with these people,seed arrived quickly and they gave me a free packet of Golden Sunrise tomatoes.V good value

 

http://www.vanmeuwen.com/dispatcher?search=perennial&gclid=CM2P6dCytKcCFYob4Qodfg-maw

This seems like a good offer for those creating a new herbacious border. Lots for your money!!!

 

Not sure about van Meuwen . I have bought plants from them on several occasions, usually they have needed substantial molly coddling to get them under way - that's fine if you have a supply of small pots, compost, greenhouse, and a bit of knowledge - but they advertise like you can just stick the things in the ground in the Spring and have an instant mature garden (I'm exaggerating, but I think they do too!)

I bought a Lavender Hedge off them for pennies though ... I think they worked out at 10p each (for the smallest possibly size of plug plants) or something like that, and now (a couple of years later) it looks a knockout.



More photos: http://kgarden.wordpress.com/projects/shrubbery/#19Apr08

"Or, of course, you could come to our Open Day . Last year Mrs shiney took about £1,000 for the plants that she had grown/propagated. All of them were bargains. There must be a lot of people around that also open their gardens and sell plants for charity."

Isn't there a "Yellow Book" or somesuch of such gardens that are open for charity? - might be an online resource to find ones in your area?