HISTORICAL FACTS: 3 - Caught on Camera

10 Bulbs to Plant in October for Strong Spring Color

October can feel like the month when gardening starts shutting down, but one of the year’s best opportunities is sitting in bags and boxes at garden centers right now. Plant the right spring flowering bulbs this fall, and you’ll get weeks of color next year without buying trays of annuals…

Frugal Gardening · Oct 1

Cool-Season Crops That Still Have Time to Grow Before Frost

If your tomatoes are fading and the first frost is showing up on the forecast, don’t assume this year’s vegetable garden is finished. Several cool-season crops grow quickly enough to squeeze another harvest from beds that would otherwise sit empty, and some tolerate temperatures that would wipe out summer vegetables…

Frugal Gardening · Oct 1

Fall Flowers That Keep Garden Beds Colorful After Summer Fades

By September and October, a garden that looked spectacular in June can suddenly feel tired, brown, and surprisingly empty. That doesn’t mean you need to rip everything out or spend a small fortune filling the gaps with decorative pumpkins and disposable plants. The right fall flowers can keep beds and…

Frugal Gardening · Oct 1

Can You Grow an Avocado Tree From the Pit — And Will It Ever Produce Fruit?

You finish an avocado, look at the enormous pit left on the cutting board, and wonder why you’d throw away something that appears perfectly capable of becoming another plant. The good news is that growing an avocado tree from a pit really does work, and you don’t need an expensive…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 30

The $30 Perennial Is Now $8 — Can You Plant It This Late?

The garden center’s clearance table can become dangerously tempting in fall: that perennial you refused to pay $30 for in May is suddenly wearing an $8 sticker. Saving $22 sounds like a fantastic gardening win, but planting clearance perennials in fall only saves money if the plant survives long enough…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 29

Stop Fertilizing These Plants Before Winter — You May Be Encouraging the Wrong Growth

It seems logical that giving plants one final meal before winter would help them survive the cold, but the opposite can happen when fertilizer encourages growth at exactly the wrong time. As days shorten and temperatures fall, perennial and woody plants begin hardening off, a process that prepares living tissue…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 29

A $5 Bag of Garlic Could Become a Garden Full of It — Here’s When to Plant

A bag of garlic looks like groceries, but biologically, you’re also looking at a surprising amount of potential planting material. Each bulb separates into individual cloves, and each healthy clove can potentially grow into an entirely new bulb, making planting garlic in fall one of the more satisfying ways to…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 29

Before You Cut Back Your Perennials, Check Who May Be Living Inside Them

Brown coneflower stalks and dried bee balm may look like garden debris once fall arrives, but to some insects, those hollow stems look more like real estate. Native solitary bees, beneficial wasps, moths, spiders, and other small creatures can use dead plant material for nesting or shelter, which means an…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 29

Buy Garden Supplies Now or Wait Until Spring? 7 Things That Are Often Cheaper Off-Season

Spring has a way of making gardeners spend money quickly: the weather warms up, planting season suddenly feels urgent, and everyone seems to need the same shovel, planter, hose, and trellis at once. Fall flips that equation because retailers begin clearing seasonal merchandise to make room for winter inventory, creating…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 29

Don’t Prune These 7 Plants in Fall or You Could Lose Next Year’s Flowers

Fall cleanup season has a way of making every overgrown shrub look like it needs a haircut. Before you grab the pruning shears, however, remember that some of next spring’s flowers are already sitting on those branches in the form of buds that developed months earlier. Spring-flowering shrubs commonly bloom…

Frugal Gardening · Sep 28