Gardening With Freebies and Leftovers

It is amazing what you can achieve in a garden for little cost. Most of my gardens have incorporated freebies, leftovers and found items. When we lived on 40 rocky acres I used lots of free rocks, tree stumps and branches from around the property. In the development of our town garden I used leftover building material as edging for some garden beds, large rocks that we bartered professional skills for and a truckload of mulch that we bartered a slab of beer for. Many plants were grown from cuttings given to us by friends. Even most of the garden art we did purchase (as birthday gifts) was made from re-used agricultural implements and other leftover bits and pieces.

 A recent garden addition stays with the freebies and leftovers theme. In a disused corner was an ugly pile of road screenings left over from a previous job. Fortunately, we had had the foresight to place heavy-duty black plastic under the screenings to prevent weed growth. I had long wanted to transform this corner into something more attractive; recently, the urge, the energy and the inspiration all coincided to produce what you see in the photo below. The screenings were roughly piled into a more pleasing shape. Old pots filled with a mixture of some screenings, gravelly sand and garden soil excavated from another project (a story for another day) had succulent cuttings planted in them. The large 'pot' at the back is the lid of a rusted out barbecue. The pots were then inserted into holes scraped in the screenings. The protruding black plastic was tucked under some relocated rocks and a length of branch that had fallen from one of the redgums. The decorative bird houses you see were made by Rodney some time ago and had not been used. The lattice at the back and the red roofing iron were also leftovers.

I do plan to spend a little bit on some decorative elements that will amuse my granddaughters and to put down some weed mat between the new bed and an existing one to eliminate a fiddly mowing job and give said granddaughters a sitting spot. For the present, though, I have transformed an ugly pile of stones into an interesting garden bed for no cost at all. It only took me a couple of hours and will look much better once the succulents take root and spread to conceal the pots and screenings. Yay! Creating something from 'nothing' is one of the joys of the garden.