Creating a lush flower garden from scratch takes time - many perennial plants need a couple of years to grow to showy sizes. So don’t worry if it takes several seasons to get your flower garden looking the way you’d want it to. That’s perfectly normal.

This is a good time of year to take stock of your garden design. Ask yourself the following questions - the answers should give you some ideas on which projects to do this spring:

Yvonne Cunnington is an avid perennial gardener and the author of Clueless in the Garden: A Guide for the Horticulturally Helpless. For lots more perennial gardening tips, visit her website http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com | For more garden design tips, see http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/gardendesign.html

Flowers are a favorite of many backyard gardeners. Thanks to their ease of planting and relatively low cost, flower bulbs are a popular choice for flower gardens. Not only are flower bulbs beautiful, but planting them is a very simple undertaking.

Planting flower bulbs is so easy, in fact, that it’s almost foolproof. The most important consideration is timing. Flower bulbs need to be planted when the ground is cool—not too hot and not too cold. It’s best to plant them about six weeks before the ground freezes.

The next consideration is location. You’ll want to choose a place where the soil drains well—bulbs do not grow well in areas with standing water. Bulbs also need a location that is well lit and sunny.

Make sure that the soil is loose. It does not require any fertilization or special treatment. However, you might want to add compost or peat moss if you’re working in a new flowerbed.

The next consideration in planting flower bulbs is purely cosmetic. You’ll want to consider the placement of the various flowers. Generally, bulbs should be densely planted—they do not look as nice planted alone or in thin lines. Taller flowers should be planted behind short ones. Consider the finished product as you are planning your flower beds. Think about which color combinations work best together, as well as which varieties of flowers best complement each other.

Once you have determined placement, you are ready to plant. Dig your holes about six to eight inches deep (follow package directions). Place the bulb in the ground with the pointed end facing up. Cover the hole and pack it firmly to release any air holes. Water the ground thoroughly.

As you can see, planting flower bulbs is a fun and easy project. With a little patience and creativity, you can have a beautiful and enjoyable flower bed.

Flower Bulbs Info provides detailed information on wholesale, discount, spring, summer, and fall flower bulbs for sale, flower bulb catalog and company information, and advice on planting flower bulbs. Flower Bulbs Info is the sister site of Flower Delivery Web.

Ordering flowers from online flower stores is as easy as a children play. Many online flower delivery shops provide a large variety of fresh flowers for those who want to purchase on the Internet. What is more, most online stores help you in finding your personal expression when they deliver your flowers, by including greeting cards with a special message printed on them. Flower delivery can be real fun, as the floral industry works for the individual, but it has moreover spread as a large business in wholesale and retail sales.

Flowers play an important role for most Americans. Flower gifts are made on every possible occasion: birthdays, weddings, graduations, funerals, holidays, anniversaries, and so on. They are even used when no occasion at all: just to make people happier. Many restaurants, clubs and other social places order large quantities of flowers for decoration. This is also popular with many businesses, homes, offices and churches. Daily or weekly they offer potted or stemmed floristry to enhance the positive attitude over visitors of their building. To serve all these needs, a large floral industry is required. Flower delivery is done to facilitate the process and to increase the number of orderings that people make.

Flower delivery is largely popular when dealing with wholesale. Restaurants, pubs, hotels order a daily delivery of carnations for their dining rooms. Buying at wholesale prices significantly reduces the sum of money for the flowers, so many businesses use it. Flower delivery can be scheduled for a certain time of the day, when the flowers are shipped to the certified place. A more personal attitude is taken to the single customer. If you decide to order flowers on the Internet, there are many facilities that will be available for you. Prescheduled deliveries receive discount prices. Another feature that online flower stores offer to the customer is credit card payment options. Flower delivery for the individual is as personalized as possible, and many online stores offer extra services that will make ordering more pleasant.

Except individual orderings, flower delivery often comprises selling great number of floral items to bigger businesses dealing in floral industry. Many flower shops as well as vendors order flowers on the Internet. There are online flower stores that also order great quantities of flowers from wholesale distributors. There are chain stores and affiliate stores that are connected together forming huge networks of flowers stores. In between them the business is taken to selling and buying large quantities of various sorts of flowers.

If you want to buy wholesale, there are special online stores that offer flower delivery at wholesale prices. They can sell you a great number of plants as well as trees, and as an individual customer you will receive many discounts. Flower delivery on the Internet also holds out opportunities for around-the-world service. Your flowers can be received in any place on the Earth, to which a transport exists. These flower deliveries take up to 24 hours to complete. There are many businesses on the Internet that provide different kinds of flower delivery to customers as well as to other businesses, because of their greater resources.

Flower delivery on the Internet is so easy-to-make and is enjoyed by everyone. It saves time and makes your loved ones happy in just a few hours. Your flowers’ appearance depends on your personal choice and preference. Sending flowers has not become trivial, even thought it is used by everyone. It still is the best surprise that you can make to someone.

Article by Robbie Darmona - an article writer who writes on a wide variety of subjects. For more information click Flower Delivery

More than just a Preformed Pond

Traditionally, preformed ponds are large shells, which are extremely burdensome and difficult to transport. For example, a typical preformed pond kit would come in a box that is 60 x 48 x 24 , which is too large for many car trunk sizes. Liner kits, on the other hand, present many difficulties for the beginner pond gardener. Since every liner pond shape is different, pond gardeners must customize their own pond and ensure that it is level, and that it does not have excessive wrinkling.

Recently, manufacturers have helped leverage both these problems by introducing a flexible preformed pond. The folding preformed/liner hybrid is created with a proprietary blend of materials, which allows it to hold a customized shape. Yet it is easily transportable, since a typical folding kit comes in a box one-sixth the size of a regular preformed kit.

The only problem with existing folding pond shells was that they were usually solid black in color. Black is a color that does not occur naturally in a pond environment, nor is it very easy to disguise. No matter how much landscaping you apply around the black shell, it is still extremely difficult to hide the fact that you are using a preformed pond.

There are many preformed rock pond shells in the market, but these tend to be extremely large and cumbersome. However, one manufacturer, Algreen Products Inc., has recently introduced a new granite flexible rock pond kit. This new folding pond shell has all the benefits of its black preformed predecessor, but both the pond and the streamlet look like rock.

The new folding rock pond includes 3 built-in plant shelves, is weather-resistant, and is able to withstand extreme temperatures from 0 F to 105 F. Each pond shell features textured ridges, which are strategically placed to allow beneficial bacteria to form growth colonies, which significantly reduces algae-buildup in the pool.

Currently, there are two sizes of granite pond shells available from GardenSuperMart (GardenSM.com): a 144 gallon shell, and a 72 gallon shell. They both come complete with a matching streamlet, a pump, and fountain heads. For more information about these kits, please go to http://www.gardensupermart.com/buypond/pics/granite_preformed.html.

Installation Instructions for Preformed Ponds

After you have unfolded a folding preformed pond, its installation is no different than for a regular preformed pond. To follow are instructions on how you can install a folding pond kit.

• Remove the folded pond (and streamlet) from the box and cut the tape.

Tip: A common mistake made by beginners is the failure to take into account how to dispose the large amount of soil that will be removed during the excavation.

Gerry Fung is the Vice President of GardenSM.com.

For more information about the granite preformed rock kits, please go to http://www.gardensupermart.com/buypond/pics/granite_preformed.html.

Gardening along the coast presents even the most skilled gardeners with challenges not encountered elsewhere. Natural conditions along the coast create a very hostile environment for garden plants. Wind, salt spray, dry sandy soils as well as actual sea water can make gardening along the coast difficult. All of these factors can cause problems for landscape plants and effect how they grow. In fact, few plants can survive full exposure to the ocean so site preparation and plant selection is perhaps even more critical here than anywhere else. Despite these difficulties, however, there are techniques and guides you can follow to create a more favorable environment for your favorite plants.

Building windbreaks as protection from the elements is essential to creating hospitable garden spaces along the coast. Windbreaks should be planted with indigenous seaside plants. Here in Massachusetts, Rosa rugoas, bayberry and eastern red cedar have developed along the coast and have proven their ability to survive the harshest of seaside conditions. They also create more diversity in the garden as well as a habitat for native wildlife. Find out what grows naturally in along the coast in your area and use those plants to create a protected garden space. Begin the screen with a planting of lower growing shrubs such as the above mentioned bayberry and rosa rugosa. This will be the first line of defense against the ocean winds and salt spray. Next, plant rows or massings of taller evergreens such as eastern red cedar, this will dampen the winds even further. Though the goal is to provide protection and create a retreat and from the harsh seaside winds, design a planting plan which still allows for beautiful views.

Along with wind and salt, dry and sandy coastal soils can present gardeners with a challenge. Sandy soils are very well drained and don’t hold enough moisture to satisfy the needs of most plants. This holds true for some distance inland as well. In order to remedy this situation till the soil and add a fairly large amount of compost, manure and peat moss. This will help the soil retain the moisture necessary for plants to survive.

Follow standard planting practices. Dig holes for trees and shrubs about twice the diameter of the root ball and just as deep. Place the plant in the hole being careful not to disturb too many of its roots. Also, always plant so that the top of the root ball meets the existing grade of the garden. Planting too high or especially too low will result in early plant decline. Begin backfilling the hole, at about half way fill the hole with water and let it settle. I usually do this twice to make sure there are no air pockets. Finish backfilling the hole then create a saucer around the trunk of the plant, mulch well and water again.

When planting a lawn along the coast the sandy soils create the need for extensive site preparation. For lawns to thrive the soil requires a certain amount of water retention. For best results, begin with 6" of topsoil. Topsoil holds moisture well, provides necessary nutrients and will prevent the leaching of fertilizers. When seeding, use a mix of Kentucky bluegrass, fescue and rye. However, use a higher percentage of the drought resistant varieties of turf such as fine fescue, red fescue and hard fescue. Be sure to water your lawn deeply. Shallow, frequent watering leads to weak root systems which remain close to the surface. An alternative to a vast lawn is to allow native grasses to grow into a meadow, just be sure to mow them at least once each season to prevent trees and shrubs from taking hold.

With proper planning, tree and shrub selection and planting technique, seaside gardens can thrive. Gardeners along the coast will find the work involved in overcoming difficult site conditions well worth their time and effort, after all the greater the challenge the greater the reward.

TJ Hallinan is a landscape designer and builder in Massachusetts. Visit his website http://www.gardenlistings.com for wildflower information. For more garden guides visit http://www.gardenlistings.com/resources.htm.

No, ghosts of the Donner Party have not started haunting my porch, nor have others of the human type I may have reference to. I am speaking of cannibals in the insect world of which there are many, but two in particuIar that make me stop and wonder. The first is waxy black with a small red hourglass on her abdomen. She dangles on a thin thread late on warm summer nights in doorways or dark corners waiting for the what ever comes her way. I am sure you guessed, it is the female black widow spider, (Latrodectus Mactans) that I am referring to, and she is no stranger to many porches and gardens around the world . Her potent neurotoxic venom is more deadly than a rattle snake, although the actual bite is less noticeable. But she is only one of the many cannibals waiting outside.

If you are lucky, your porch may attract a less deadly, human friendly cannibal, with lightning strike reflexes and human like characteristics. The adult praying mantis, of whom its been said, is the only insect able to swivel its head around 180 degrees. Mantis is the Greek word for prophet, and if you see one of these on your porch you are immediately impressed by its show of awareness and seeming lack of fear as it turns its head and watches you walk by. The praying mantis, also commonly called mantids, like the black widow, have a reputation of sexual cannibalism, in that the females are known for eating the males head after and sometimes during mating, which in truth only happens some of the time, however in the case of the mantids, the young nymphs emerging from their egg cases will begin to eat each other if another food source is not found within one or two days and they are kept caged together with no means of escape. They emerge from their eggs as tiny strings, one attached to the next, through a row of pin-sized holes in the egg. As the string grows longer they individually begin to unfold into tiny little creatures looking just like their parents, only wingless, stringy and weak, but able to walk or run to high ground, or I should say elevated branches and leaves as they seem to have an instinct to climb, like tiny infantry soldiers searching for a safe place to lie in wait for any soft bodied insect they can over-power while avoiding any large ants or meat bees which can easily carry them of at this age.

As a gardener and amateur entomologist I am naturally drawn to these two insects. In the case of the black widow, it is the possibility of a nasty bite, and a trip to the emergency room, which has always concerned me. In the case of the praying mantis, besides its mysterious fascination and pre-historic looks, it is its reputation as a beneficial insect for pest control that got my attention. Then I got a crazy idea about using the talents of the mantis to control the black-widow population by setting them out as sentinels on the porch and in the yard and so I went about gathering mantid egg cases from neighboring areas, “oothecas”, as they are called, and began waiting for them to hatch, while I designed several cages which I thought appropriate. The first ootheca hatched in mid-April and I somehow missed it. I turned to look in the glass container as usual and there were over one-hundred little guys about five sixteenths of an inch long, running and jumping from branch to branch exploring the gallon container. They had all come from one egg case! Little did I know at that time what I was getting into as I tried to figure out how to get the other egg cases out of the container without half of the little guys escaping in the process. The first thing I realized was that I was going to need a good pair of glasses, and a lot of time and patience to journey into this insects world.

Since then four months have passed and since this is not the place for a novel, I will only share information, as it would relate to gardening and pest control. As for the black widow, we will just have to wait and see, but for once I would say that the “little prophet”, lives up to the hype of its reputation as a good beneficial, provided certain procedures are taken.

Most beneficial insect companies recommend releasing your mantids immediately or just placing the egg cases out in the garden to hatch on their own. I would not recommend this as most of them will fall prey to other predatory insects at this age, as they do not get their wings till the end of their third month and their only defenses are camouflage and stealth during the first few days. If a colony of large ants track them down, the whole population from an egg case can become ant food in a few hours. It is better to wait three to four weeks before releasing them, letting them grow to between five eighths and three quarters of an inch, during this time they have learned a little self-defense from practicing with each other. This can be done very easily with a self-feeding ant proof cage that can be kept outdoors with very little maintenance and reused year after year. If this is done the survival rate will increase dramatically and many more mantids will be found protecting the garden later in the season. At this point you can release them strategically or randomly. If you want to target specific plants with a pest problem, you can release them every four inches apart or so and after they find a spot they like they will most likely stay in or near to that spot ranging no more than twelve inches or so contrary to popular belief. They will usually stay in that general area for several weeks until they can no longer find food, or until they become prey for meat bees, which constantly hover in search of a meal, and crafty spiders that sneak up from underneath and in a surprise attack inject their poison. Many times it may seem that they are gone and then several days later they are back again when all the time they were hiding right in front of you. Some of my outside mantids have stayed in the same place for two months. Do not expect miracles. If a pest infestation has already occurred it is most likely too late for these beneficials to be of much help. At this age they may eat only four or five aphids or small flies a day but they can survive on less and they will not eat if they are not hungry. They will also help control the mosquito population as I found out when I introduced a few mosquitoes into their cages. In fact there is the possibility of them being very effective for mosquito control if released in marshlands or around stagnant water.

As time goes by they will begin eating larger and more difficult prey. At about ninety days, give or take a day or two, after they have shed their last exoskeleton they will show their wings. It usually happens at night and in the morning, there they are, a beautiful set of wings. It seems like a small miracle the first time you see this happen. This is the easiest time to differentiate between the sexes and when the females start their domination although if you have the eyes of a child, or a good magnifying glass, the sexes can be determined by counting body segments at a very early age. This is also the point at which they start traveling about the yard, or flying over to the yard next door to look for a mate and search for larger prey like grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, moths, etc. They have now grown to between two and a half to three inches, and can no longer catch the smaller prey. Their hunting skills have developed into a form of art and they have reached their full potential The female now looks like a miniature version from the Jurassic period, with strong hooked arms and columns of sharp, tapered spikes. She can flare up her wings in defiance vibrating delicate webbing which extends to her body causing her to appear large and ferocious to any approaching threat. Most humans would step back upon seeing this display for the first time, kind of like hearing a rattlesnake when you are not expecting it. This is also the time when you might expect me to place them on the porch as sentinels to complete this experiment. Well I said in the beginning it was a crazy idea and I cannot find one black widow on the porch anyway, or in the yard. Besides, raising these wonderful creatures in captivity they have become like family pets some of which I have given names to and praise or scold according to their behavior. To subject one of my pets to a life or death battle with a black widow is no longer an option. I am sure they would not stay on the porch for more than a couple of days anyway, just long enough to say good bye and maybe scare off a few solicitors before flying off in the night to safely deposit their eggs and then face their deadliest of prey, the futile first frost.

Jim Burnell is a carpenter/cabinet maker and small business owner with a lifetime of varied hobbies from boat building to studying Zeno’s paradox. Currently he is studying the effects of catnip on mosquitoes and other insects, the testing and raising of certain beneficial insects in the garden and in captivity, and simplifying certain gardening procedures in transplanting and cloning. For links to his other articles, journals and ideas he can be reached at his website: http://www.spreadtheworld.blogspot.com or e-mail jimbkayak@yahoo.com

Even if carefully dried, flowers still aren’t eternal. Dried flowers are less subjected to damage than the living ones, but they are also vulnerable and can’t be preserved in ideal condition if you don’t take some pains looking after them.

To begin with, their colours tend to fade as time passes. Dried flowers are getting more and more pale, and you may need to put them to special attendance. Using aerosol paints and dyes, you may slightly tint the petals and stems of the dried flowers so that they retain their fresh looks longer.

The second threat comes from garden pests. Insects like beetles, silverfish, roaches and many more can easily cause great damage to your bunch, especially if you don’t take good care of the container where you keep the dried flowers. The container must be tightly closed so that insects don’t get there. Upon finding dried flowers, pests start gnawing the soft tissue in the centre of the plant and the dried flower gradually falls apart.

A way to prevent this is by checking occasionally the inner side of the box or container. If you find any insects, you had better take strict measures. Hordes of pests can be repulsed by sprinkling several naphthalene flakes in the inside of the box. Another way to get rid of insects is to spray stronger kinds of insecticides in the container. Anyway, precaution is best. When an area is infected, chemicals can do little about it. So, you’d better make sure that your container is tightly closed before you put the dried flowers in it. You need to regularly check the condition of your dried flowers to make sure no insects have broken through the siege.

Last thing you need to have in mind about dried flowers is that even with loving cares, they cannot last more than several years at best. But if you follow the tips, you may preserve the beautiful look of your dried flowers for a very long time.

Article by Robbie Darmona - an article writer who writes on a wide variety of subjects. For more information click Dried Flowers or Find a florist

In an effort to introduce a shaft of sunlight into a particularly gloomy conversation, I recently asked a gardening acquaintance of mine to explain the difference between a slug and a snail.

For the next twelve minutes and seven seconds, this horticultural monomaniac held forth on the most minute and inconsequential differences between gastropod molluscs with rudimentary or no shells and gastropod molluscs with well developed spiral or whorled shells. When he finally ran out of breath, I swallowed hard, took three precautionary steps backwards, and told him that a slug is a snail that can’t afford a mortgage.

Instead of smiling as I had done when I had first unearthed this daft definition in a dog-eared copy of ‘The Readers Digest’ (dentist’s waiting room edition), he ground his dentures together, cracked his calloused knuckles, and growled so raucously that the button almost exploded from his collar.

He went on to catalogue in some detail the manifold acts of vandalism perpetrated by these ‘horticultural thugs’ who, he said, spend their entire daylight hours skulking plumply under stones, ruminating darkly on last night’s grim destruction and this night’s planned assaults.

He proceeded to ridicule the ‘green-wellied wimps’ who nightly sprinkle little handfuls of slug pellets around vulnerable flowers and vegetables; and the poor drunkard who meanders home each night clutching a bottle of beer with which to entice and drown the occasional slug foolish enough to mistake his little beer traps for hospitality vats.

‘I have suffered enough from the same blasted slugs over the years without starting to buy drink for them,’ he said. ‘There’s only one answer to those brutes…all out military action!’

His eyes grew incandescent with malevolent glee as he described his nightly sorties into the flowerbeds and lettuce patches where, armed with a commando style torch and a jumbo-sized barrel of table salt, he would venture forth in search of the enemy…..a lethal avalanche of sodium chloride cascading inexorably on the masticating molluscs …

‘O little slug thy hapless play my thoughtless hand has swept away.’

‘I have suffered enough from the same blasted slugs over the years without starting to buy drink for them,’ he said. ‘There’s only one answer to those brutes…all out military action!’

Grinning maliciously, he described in graphic detail a fiendish plan, which he had been working on in the privacy of his horticultural bunker. I cannot recall the preliminary tactical manoeuvres, but remember that they culminated in him leaping gymnastically from the top of a hawthorn hedge and landing squarely on an unsuspecting black slug just as it was about to devour an equally unsuspecting French marigold.

Chilled to the marrow by his demonic laugh, I suddenly remembered that I had parked on a double yellow line. So, wishing him well, I vaulted over his rustic fence and fled.

On my way home, I pictured him somersaulting and cartwheeling hysterically among the broad beans and the brassicas as he celebrated each decisive victory over those diminutive moonlight marauders.

While walking through our local market some months ago, I caught sight of a particularly ostentatious display of French marigolds. Acting on impulse, I purchased three dozen and planted them out that evening. On the following morning I went out into the garden to admire the results of my debut as Capability Brown Mark 11.

Would you believe it? My proud marigolds had vanished! Yes, totally! All except three pathetic looking survivors with broken necks and tattered stems. On closer inspection, I discovered the unmistakable, tell - tale slime trails leading triumphantly into the adjoining hedgerow. As one gardening writer described them: "The obscene graffiti of a night’s destruction… adding insult to injury."

Apoplectic with rage, I was looking around for something to kick hard and often when suddenly, through the thick black smoke and suffocating stench of mental cordite, I conjured up the image of my gardening friend with his beaming torch and his gigantic barrel of table salt.

"Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders, If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders."

With these inspirational words of Kipling ringing loud in my ears, that night I too joined the ranks of the horticultural storm-troopers and sallied forth armed and ready to slug it out with that ghastly gardening gastropod : The Slug.

‘Slugging It Out In The Trenches’ is taken from ‘Apples on a Sunny Shelf’. See: http://www.assignmentsplus.com/garden-pests.html

Gerard McLoughlin, Director of Assignments Plus Publications http://www.assignmentsplus.com, is the author of ‘Apples on a Sunny Shelf’, a collection of essays first broadcast by Radio Television Eireann (Ireland’s national broadcaster) on the popular ‘Sunday Miscellany’ series.

While "Rock Gardens" is the modern name, another term used in connection with natural rock gardening is "rockeries". The biggest problem is to determine the plants that are likely to succeed under the conditions that can be provided. There are no plants that can be counted as rock plants in every part of the country; therefore, plants must be selected for the particular locality where they are to be grown. The background or setting for the rock garden varies greatly because of the topography and character of the country. In a rough, rocky country rock garden sites are sometimes found almost readymade, but in other sections they must be created from materials collected for the purpose.

In the latter case care is necessary in order to produce a result that does not look forced or out of place. When building a house on a rocky hillside it may often be possible to reserve an adjacent area that may be made into a most attractive garden with but little modification. Even old quarries can be and are converted into attractive gardens. Where, however, such features have to be built, it takes a good student of nature to reproduce naturalistic rock ledges and other stone outcroppings. Boulders (rounded, waterworn stones) may be scattered over a gentle slope, whereas on a steeper slope the stones must be placed close together, at some points even resting on one another. Even rock walls may be part of a rock garden.

Rock Walls Quarried or angular field stones often may be appropriately used to hold artificial banks. Stones with weathered faces are usually more attractive than those with newly cut or broken faces. Where there is a gentle slope, a row of stones may be placed at the bottom, with spaces between them two or three times as wide as the stones; other stones may be placed behind these spaces with the bottom as high as the tops of the front stones and back far enough to hold the soil at the desired slope. Where the bank is steep the space between the stones, often only 2" or 3", may be filled with soil and the next stone laid over this opening, resting on both the lower stones and set as far back as the desired slope of the wall will permit. Stones should not be uniform in size, and those more irregular in outline than is desired for building purposes make a more attractive wall. If the stone has a relatively flat upper surface, the surface should be so placed that water falling on it will drain back into the wall and not off.

Elizabeth Passage has a lifelong passion for, and extensive experience in, the garden gift, landscaping, garden decor, garden design industries. http://www.merchantspassage.com

There’s been a huge increase in the popularity of garden makeovers. Teams of people come in and transform your garden in less than a day. But how can you save money by avoiding the experts and costly plants and perform a garden makeover miracle yourself?

Planning, research and the quality of plants are integral factors to saving money when buying plants for your garden.

The quickest way to waste money is needing to replace plants after they wither and die.

Perth nursery owner Courtney Babb, from Garden Affair in South Perth, says get it right the first time. "It’s important to plan what you want first, then go and buy the plants. It cost’s more if you’re never really satisfied", he said.

Developing a basic plan and researching the requirements of your garden is essential to saving money. You must determine what plants are suitable to your garden’s environment and choose varieties fitting to the climate and soil.

Buying seeds or seedlings is the most cost effective way of starting your garden and this certainly needs planning. It may take a little longer and command more patience but seeds establish themselves faster and develop stronger root systems. Buy seedlings without flowers and always check the quality of seeds by looking for splits or marks and moisture in the packaging.

The quality of the plants you buy is vital. Look for healthy foliage and strong root systems, don’t buy plants with roots growing out the bottom of the pot or with discoloured, diseased foliage.

"Buying plants that after twelve months you can lift, divide and then re-plant, can save a lot of money," said Mr Babb.

Perennials and succulents are ideal to divide and re-plant, including ornamental grasses such as mondo grass. The ultimate saving is to gather cuttings from friends and family members, ensuring the original plant is healthy and disease free.

"Native plants and groundcovers are extremely cost effective, especially in terms of maintenance," adds Mr Babb. Plants that easily multiply are a great way to save dollars on your landscaping budget in the long run.

Peta Woods from Southside Garden Centre says to use your local people. "They don’t have the overheads of larger chains so they are a lot more competitive on prices. I also find the stock is fresher because they have less to look after," she said.

It is best to purchase at the beginning of the plants growing season and get them established before extreme weather strikes. Buying plants in bulk is always a cheaper alternative as prices can be negotiated.

Landscaping can be an expensive task but there are ways of reducing the cost of establishing your garden. Shop around to compare prices and plant quality to get the best deal.

Transforming the Garden of Desolation to the Garden of Eden need not be budget blowing. Here are ten ideas on how to save money when buying plants for your garden:

1. Plan and prepare your garden.
2. Buy seeds or seedlings rather than potted plants.
3. Buy plants that are suited to their environment.
4. Look for healthy root systems and foliage.
5. Shop at small, local nurseries, they have competitive prices and fresher stock.
6. Purchase at the beginning of the plants growing season.
7. Native plants and ground covers are cost effective.
8. Buy plants you can lift, divide and re-plant, such as perennials and succulents.
9. Avoid having to re-purchase by getting plants established before extreme weather.
10. Negotiate the price if buying in bulk.

Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries.

You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com. Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com.