A savvy garden pro shares little-known money-saving secrets and tricks of the garden center trade that consumers need to know to get good deals.
This book proves that you don’t need mega bucks to have a beautiful garden. The secret is having savvy garden pro Kerry Mendez by your side. In The Budget-Wise Gardener, Mendez gives the inside scoop on nailing the best deals and having it all: selecting plants that give you the most bang for your buck, timing your purchases to take advantage of deep discounts and giveaways, finding treasures at plant, bulb and seed swaps – and much more. Her chapters take you from “How to Score Great Plants for Less…or for Free!” and “Design Secrets that Save Money” to “Regal Containers on a Dollar-Store Budget.” With luscious color photos on nearly every page, this is an essential guide to creating the garden of your dreams without breaking the bank.
Kerry Ann Mendez is the owner of Perennially Yours, a landscaping company focusing on the art of low-maintenance perennial gardening. Perennially Yours gardens have been featured in numerous garden and lifestyle magazines, newspapers, radio and television shows. Mendez’s most recent book is The Right-Size Flower Garden (St. Lynn’s 2015). A busy lecturer and teacher, each year she gives over 25 workshops and webinars, and 60-70 talks. She is the founder of the annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposiums at the Equinox Resort in Vermont, and recently hosted 6 national webinars for Horticulture magazine. www.pyours.com. She resides in Kennebunk, Maine.
Read an Excerpt
From Chapter 2: Plant Sources & Treasure Maps Seed Libraries Public libraries are now part of the movement to prevent further loss of genetic diversity in the plant world. Library members “check out” seed for free, grow the plants, harvest seeds, and “return” some of these to replenish the library’s seed inventory. To see if there is a seed library near you or to learn how to start one, visit these sites: Seed Library Social Network (seedlibraries.org) and Global Map of Seed Libraries (seedlibrarymap.com).
Table of Contents
Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: How to Score Great Plants for Less….or for Free! Chapter 2: Refined Dumpster Diving: Plant Sources and Treasure Maps Chapter 3: Design Secrets that Save Money Chapter 4: Regal Containers on a Dollar-Store Budget Resources Index
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
“Kerry Ann Mendez is a "down and dirty" dynamo, connecting with other hands-on gardeners to speak into common bonds and share her considerable know-how.”
~ Tovah Martin, author of more than a dozen gardening books, including Tasha Tudor’s Garden
Interviews
The Budget-Wise Gardener’s subtitle says it all: “With Hundreds of Money-Saving Buying & Design Tips for Planting the Best for Less.” … The book has so many ideas and strategies that you are bound to have a beautiful garden and not break the bank or your back. An additional interpretation of the Kerry Ann Mendez gardening mantra could be how to spend less money and time on yard maintenance, all the while keeping in mind sustainable practices such as saving water, attracting pollinators and using “friendly” pesticides. (less than 200 pages with oodles of color photos)
