Search For Inexpensive Or Free Landscaping Materials & Supplies Online
I like to consider myself a beginner gardener and landscaper. With that being said I am also always on a budget. One of the best ways to find cheap or inexpensiveness landscaping materials or supplies, is by searching online marketplaces. I have been able to find free rocks, free or cheap sod, free plants, free or cheap pavers and sometimes even inexpensive patio furniture! My favorite place to search is Facebook Marketplace. Its quick and simple and local to your own area. Just be sure your search is specific to what you need. Craigslist is also another great online tool for scoring free or dirt cheap gardening materials as well as some garage sales.
Choose An Inexpensive Paving Material
If you’re looking for cheap backyard ideas with no grass, check out all your options for hardscaping, including less expensive crushed rock and gravel. Gravel provides a more casual surface underfoot for outdoor seating nooks and dining areas. If you do use traditional pavers, consider unusual placementâlarge stones interspersed with wide swaths of grass, for exampleâto cut down on the total material needed.
Add Pathway Plants And Shrubs
For a put-together look, install evergreen shrubs or ornamental, mounding grasses along the edges of the pathway that leads to your front door. As mentioned above, creating a sense of entry adds powerful aesthetic value to your landscape.
Plants with a naturally round shape will create a nice rhythm and are less work to maintain than plants with a less defined form. Experiment with the spacing between plants to find an interval that feels best and that allows enough room for lighting or flowering annuals in between. When planting immature plants, take into account their mature sizes.
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Grow Your Garden Vertically
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Whether youre looking to expand your garden without taking up horizontal space or searching for small backyard ideas, wall planters are terrific for changing your outdoor area on a budget. The experienced carpenter will love this custom DIY vertical planter. But if youre looking for something simpler, drill plastic planter boxes or pots into a wooden pallet to place against your house.
Pick Your Plants Precisely
Sure, those tropical carrion flowers are incredibly beautiful, and as a bonus, they smell like rotting meat. But are they really going to thrive in a backyard in Boulder?
If your green thumb actually has coloration that’s closer to black than jade, take heed — you can’t pick and choose plants willy-nilly and expect them to survive in your yard. You can easily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars hoping that various a species or two will finally stay alive for more than a week or two. Or you might spend that much trying to eliminate a non-native, invasive plant that has taken control of the entire place after you made the boneheaded mistake of planting it.
For starters, you can get a rough idea of whether a plant will survive by checking an interactive map like the ones from the National Gardening Association, Better Homes and Gardens, or Mother Earth News. But don’t depend on solely little colored climate region maps that supposedly show places that are suited for certain plant types. Success depends on more than weather patterns. Soil type, other plant life, animals, and many other variables also factor into the equation.
When it comes to picking plants, experienced local gardeners can offer tips that will save you a ton of time and money. Local government agencies, like a county extension and university horticulturists, also are happy to help you determine which plants work best in the area, and how to avoid the kinds of foliage that amount to no more than pestilence.
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Blend Flowers And Greenery
Blending different flowers and greenery will help bring some depth and character to your backyard. This is a great backyard landscaping idea on a budget, as you get to choose how expensive this project will be. You can combine a couple of $10 dollar plants and flowers to keep the budget low or get more extravagant and combine 20 different types of flowers and plants for a higher budget. Minimal skill is needed, and it wont take long to complete.
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Upcycled Sloped Backyard Water Feature
The best thing about having a sloped backyard garden is that the water runs downhill! A downhill slope eliminates some friction when creating a great upcycled water feature, such as this innovative watering can design.
Imagine how much fun the kids will have in this sloped-garden-turned-play-haven! Installing a playground is a great use of the natural slope of your backyard.
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Create A Clean Walkway
A well-designed walkway invites guests into your home and adds to your front yards overall appeal. A cracked, shabby or overgrown walkway has the opposite effect. Straight concrete paths, especially if theyre cracked or uneven, can be replaced with a stone or brick contoured pathway for an instant makeover.
If your walkway is in good shape but could use a little update, consider power washing and then applying a pigmented concrete resurfacer to give it a fresh new look. Using brick or stone to create a border along the walkway or installing plantings alongside the pathway can reinvigorate the look and feel.
Properly installed pavers can add value to your property, but poor installations are a liability. Take the time to do it correctly, or consider hiring a professional.
Construct A Tree Bench
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Utilize that big tree in your backyard makeover by building a tree bench! Some protective eye gear, wood pallets, and a saw are just a few of the items youll need for this crafty outdoor bench idea. When youre finished, paint it your favorite color and add some decorative pillows for a shaded reading spot!
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Bark Up The Right Tree
Whether a tree has been chopped down or felled by a storm, you might be left stumped about what to do with the remains of that ill-fated tree. Know that expensive or time-consuming stump removal isn’t the only solution to the problem. Taking inspiration from this unconventional garden, you can repurpose a neglected tree stump into a one-of-a-kind planter. As long as rot hasn’t set in, you can hollow out the center of the tree stump with a jigsaw and a chisel, fill the hollow core with soil, then drop in your favorite blooms to create an all-natural flair for the yard.
Get Creative With Container Planting
If you want to add pops of color without disrupting the existing landscape, one of the more creative landscaping ideas for front of house areas is to add accents in containers.
The types of containers available range from recycled whiskey barrels to massive glazed ceramic pots, and even custom-built steel planters. Container planting is an easy way to add volumes, color, texture and layers to an existing space instantly.
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Set Up A Backyard Theater
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Grab the popcorn and appreciate the outdoors with this backyard makeover idea. Add a few blankets, large pillows, and string lights for a comfortable theater ambiance, and hook up a projector and screen to watch all of your favorite flicks right in your yard! This DIY screen is a cheap and easy way to create the ultimate backyard viewing experience.
Build Color With Containers
Annuals can be less expensive than perennials and shrubs, and they’re a great way to add color and impact to a backyard, especially when arranged in containers. Matching vessels offer design cohesion, as does a similar color palette for the plants. Another cheap backyard patio idea: A stone slab on top of a lumber scrap makes for a casual outdoor side table.
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Invite The Neighbors With A Birdbath
A birdbath can make a beautiful focal point while also inviting natures guests to your lawn. Enjoy watching the birds rinse their feathers and listening to their beautiful songs.
You wont have to spend much time installing or maintaining this landscape feature to appreciate the beauty it brings to your lawn.
Cost: A low-cost birdbath will typically run you between $30 and $50.
+ Cheap And Simple Front Yard Landscaping Ideas
The first impression about anything is always an image that sticks with you for the rest of your time. The same goes when it comes to your households. The exterior view of your house involves not only the perfectly designed homely outlook. It consists of the surroundings that come with it.
The landscaping details that tie up the front yard of your home affect the kind of projection it is on someone who comes by. Hiring a professional to deal with the same might seem like the easiest way to get to do.
But, you can always take the better road of planning the whole design yourself and saving up on a lot in the process. Here you will not only get the chance to get your visions to come alive but will also get to use some things that you might have rendered as wastes. This saves up the time and money spent fishing out the perfect but expensive landscaping elements for your front yard.
To make your journey with this process easier we have compiled some cheap simple front yard landscaping ideas and tips, to get you started.
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Brighten Up With Bistro Lights
Beautiful light fixtures make all the difference in design, and your outdoor kitchen is no exception, friend. Illuminate your alfresco kitchen with a slew of budget-friendly bistro lights overhead. Another idea? Install wall-mounted sconces behind your cooking area to provide yourself with a chic spotlight for grilling after dark.
Get It Done By Yourself
You dont need to hire an architect or professional landscaper to get some interesting layout designs. With a little research and the help from photos like this one, you can easily see some ideas and recreate them to fit your specifications.
Cut-out shapes in planters and sidewalk areas can offer an interesting yard focal point or even add to an already existing design. Use your imagination and cut shapes out to fit into your lawn via garden beds or even gravel and rocks.
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Cheap Backyard Landscaping Ideas
Utilizing crushed stones or garden rocks is one of the easiest cheap backyard landscaping ideas you can find. Instead of having to pay a hefty price for lawn turfs such as grass or other plants, you can easily fill a lot of space by using the type of crushed stone pictured or even garden rocks, gravel, etc.
There are so many garden fillers out here you can choose from, and you can find virtually any color and texture that would work best with your setting. If you dont want to fill the entire space up with gravel or rocks, you can easily outline a garden are to give it some decorative properties and spruce up the area.
The Right Decor Goes A Long Way
From watering cans, wheelbarrows, chairs, and benches, to colored pots, stones, and ceramics, you can dress your garden in a myriad of ways. It doesnât have to be expensive. Visit thrift stores for great finds, or ask friends and family for things they can share.
Which of these sloped garden ideas will you employ in your backyard?
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Preparing Your Garden For Spring
The warmer temperature and the flurry of activity in your garden is more than enough to compel anyone to do a little spring gardening. Heres a brief checklist of the things that you might want to do to prepare your garden for spring. Off to the right start Before you focus your attention on gardening,
Use Cement For A Modern Look
For a more contemporary approach, concrete can provide a clean, modern look. Apply this technique for creating walkways, steps, or a garden wall. For a softer touch, make sure to add all kinds of plants, including succulents, flowers, and hardy shrubs. Lighting will play a key role in enhancing the mood in your concrete space.
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Inexpensive Containers Free Fertilizer
Container-gardening makes a lot of sense if space in your yard is limited. The idea makes even more sense if you can obtain cheap containers and plant them yourself. Inexpensive containers, including cemetery logs , can sometimes be purchased at yard sales. Just be careful to scour them out well in case they harbor any diseases.
Whether planting in the ground or in containers, you’ll need to fertilize your plants. But don’t spend more than you need to on fertilizers when you can feed your plants for free. If you’re serious about landscaping on a budget, then one of your first projects should be to build a compost bin. Then just place kitchen scraps, raked leaves, etc. into the compost bin, watering and mixing occasionally, and you’ll have a ready source of soil amendments for free.
If that sounds like too much work, some cities offer free compost at designated locations on a first-come-first-served basis. This compost is produced from vegetation removed by city work crews.
Go For Composite Decking That Will Last
A sleek decked space by NeoTimber
‘Carefully laid decking helps to create an increased sense of space by offering a dedicated area for entertaining and unwinding that can be utilized year-round,’ says Charles Taylor, Director at Composite Prime. ‘This can be achieved by adding levels to a sloping garden or elevating an area with raised decking.’
Now, decking might not be at the forefront of your mind when thinking of cheap landscaping ideas, and that’s understandable it might require a bit more budgeting. However, we’ve included it in our list because the best composite decking products will last such a long time that it’s a definite worthwhile investment, saving you money in the long run.
‘It is understandable that people will look to minimize their budgets when doing up their garden, but we believe the cheapest way is not always the right option,’ explains Toby Allen, Director at NeoTimber® . ‘We feel it’s more important to choose a cost-efficient material.’
For instance, their composite decking has a 25-year warranty and never needs to be stained or painted. ‘Unlike timber, which will likely need to be re-sealed every year and replaced after ten years, composite decking gives you a truly viable, cost-effective option which lasts for years,’ the team adds. And nowadays, there’s a wide range of products to suit various budgets.
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Ground Cover Is The Way To Go
Ground cover is a godsend as far as dealing with water run-off challenges in your beautiful garden is concerned.
That’s not all.
Ground cover ranks among the best hillside landscaping ideas on a budget to add color and life to your sloped yard. For stunning results, settle for an array of different-colored plants for your flower garden.
To be on the safe side, go for low-maintenance ground cover plants suitable for your region’s climate and soil.
Go Rustic And Reuse Garden Waste
Think of clever ways to reuse garden waste to save on costs
If you’re cutting back bushes or trees in your garden, check to see if you can reuse any of your offcuts before condemning them to the brown bin or compost heap.
For cheap garden ideas that are functional and stylish, save skinny, straight branches and reinvent them as cane wigwams for sweet peas or climbing beans. Tree trunk slices can be used for garden path ideas as they make an attractive stepping stone design.
Meanwhile, stumps can be repurposed into rustic stools to place around the best fire pits. Clustered together, they can also be used to display pots at varying heights. Take a look at our tree stump ideas for more creative uses.
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Plant Perennials Or Succulents Around Your Home
Rather than buying new plants, use some perennials or succulents to quickly and easily improve your yard. Smaller varieties can work as a border that you simply fill in with flowers or grasses once theyve grown. If your outdoor space is mostly dirt, then succulents are an easy way to add color and benefit from low-maintenance plants that require hardly any irrigation or fertilization.
You can also save money by using perennials as ground cover in the spots where grass wont grow. Even if it dies off over winter youll have a blank slate come springtime.