More Free Plants for the Garden

Last week, my neighbor stopped me to ask if I’d be interested in a bunch of free plants. One of her friends had passed away recently; and the family didn’t want to deal with the upkeep of her garden, so we had permission to dig up anything we wanted.

We drove over, so she could show me the garden. Then, we made plans to go back Saturday morning to dig.

I came home with enough bags to fill the trunk of my car, plus part of the back seat.

And enough plants to make progress on three sections of the yard that we’ve been working on this summer. Let me show you where I planted everything.

This is that garden bed with the overgrown apricot trees that I showed you earlier this spring.

Here’s that bed after we removed the apricots, and planted privacy trees.

And here’s that bed now. It contains a few clearance plants, but most of the stuff you see came from my free plant haul.

There’s Miniature Wave Petunias, Lamb’s Ear …

Corydalis, Lillies …

Stonecrop …

plus a few things I don’t know the names of yet.

The bench is a recent addition, too. It came from a curb pile. My husband replaced one of the slats. Now, I just need to find time to paint it. And I just added the solar lights this weekend. We made them out of old light globes.

The Day Lilly bed is another area that benefited from my free plant haul. This is what that bed looked like this spring.

And here’s how it looks now. I’m on a quest to replace the office lawn with plants, so I keep expanding this bed as I come across more free or cheap plants.

That bed now includes Canna Lillies and Russian Sage (found on clearance) …

as well as lots of plants from my free haul. I plan to put together a itemized plant list as soon as I get a minute.

Oh, and I don’t know if you remember, but all the stone that I used to edge that garden bed came from curb piles, too.

A shady spot next to one of the office porches is the final area to benefit from my free plant haul. It receives constant shade, so I planted a few clearance hostas in that bed earlier this summer. And that fern in the front was part of my haul. I haven’t had much luck finding free shade plants, so I was especially excited to get it.

Over the years, I’ve gotten lots of great plants for free, like this bee balm …

these orange daylillies …

and this Corydalis.

I can’t wait to watch these new additions grow and fill in.

My neighbor and I are planning another trip to her friend’s garden for plants. It sounds like the family may want everything dug up. I’ll keep you updated.