Gardening is a fantastic hobby; it’s relaxing, it adds aesthetic value to your home, and you can even plant your own produce to enjoy. However, it can also be a very expensive past time. If you want to do it properly, you’re going to want to use the proper materials right from the start.
Slash your gardening costs
The problem is that many of us can’t afford to invest a whole whack of cash into our gardens, no matter how much we would want to. Don’t let that put you off, however. There are plenty of ways you can slash your costs without having to delve into the value range.
Tip 1: Plan Your Garden Out
Before you even plant or buy any gardening materials, sketch a plan of your garden out to exact measurements. You need to make sure you know how much space you have available before you buy your topsoils, planting beds and other essential gardening materials.
Tip 2: Speak to an Experienced Gardening Expert
Some will see this as an expensive unnecessary add-on, but it can save your gardening project a lot of money in the long run. It’s worth investing in an hour’s worth of consultation time with a gardening expert or someone with a good level experience and understanding of gardening. Speaking to someone prior to jumping straight in will allow the development of ideas within what’s realistic for your garden.
Tip 3: Don’t Buy Everything In One Go
Let’s face it, we’ve all been guilty of diving straight into a project with little to no planning due to overexcitement and easternness to make a start. One of the biggest miscalculations a lot of first time gardeners often make is the mistake of buying absolutely everything in their first buying session.
It is actually wiser to buy gardening equipment and materials in stages, topping up and adding to your existing collection one section at a time. This method has the added benefit of learning from experience, and limiting potentially large, and sometimes inevitable, mistakes to smaller quantities and orders.
Tip 4: Don’t Buy Cheap
It’s always tempting to try and cut corners by going for cheaper landscaping materials such as topsoils, organic composts, mulches and planting loams. This method of saving costs can actually be an expensive mistake – and unfortunately you will often find that the subpar quality will only require replacement purchases in the very near future.
Bury Hill Landscape Supplies Ltd. is all about high quality landscape materials, topsoils, turfs, seasoned hardwood logs and fire coal. Renowned for our trademarked ‘Bury Hill Black‘, one of the finest topsoils available anywhere in the country.
Tip 5: Buy Value!
The difference between buying cheap materials and buying good value materials is a matter of quality. The more experience you get as a gardener, the easier it will become to discern the difference. It’s like buying Tesco Value at the super market – with certain brands you barely notice the difference, while others are just not edible!
Obviously the key here is to establish which landscape and gardening suppliers work for you and your budgets. All of our soils are premium grade topsoils, so whilst more expensive than some cheaper economy style topsoils – all our premium grade topsoils and loams are blended using high quality natural soils, selected sands and grits and organic compost from known sources, using local materials where possible.
Tip 6: Research Your Landscape Supplier
It pays to be thorough in setting up your new garden. Once you’ve made the decision on what landscape and gardening supplier you’d like to go for, really read up on what they’re about. You’ll find that most local suppliers know what they’re talking about and can really give you some great advice for saving money on setting up your garden, especially if you’re a first-timer.
Tip 7: Spread the Costs
If your neighbours are into their gardening as well, why not share the cost on certain items? For example, hiring tools such as chippers and tillers can be expensive.
Get together and split your gardening costs – really saving money on the larger things like garden equipment hire means that you can spend more on other aspects of your garden, like buying top quality topsoil!
Tip 8: It’s All About Timing
Like with seasonal fruits and veggies, prices of gardening materials vary drastically depending on the season. Lumber, for example, is significantly cheaper during the winter.
You’ll learn this with experience and time, but certainly hitting the shops in autumn and winter for landscape gardening supplies can be very effective for saving money.
Tip 9: Estimate Costs
Some people think of a gardening project and head to the nearest garden centre in gung-ho style. The ‘saving money’ philospohy they had in mind suddenly spirals out of control when they realize just how many additional things need to be purchased to make the whole thing happen. Avoid this by planning thorough estimates of costs before you start buying.
Tip 10: Buy Used
The second-hand market is a fantastic place to find bargains. Gardening tools often last several generations without a hitch, so it can be quite easy to find quality products at rock-bottom prices.
So there you have it, our top 10 tips on how to save money whilst gardening! Please do share on Facebook, Twitter and Google + if you enjoyed this article, and remember Bury Hill Landscape Supplies Ltd. in the future for all your gardening needs.
Call us on 01306 877540 or visit our online store for more gardening advice, buying our range of premium grade topsoils and for information.