Gardening on a tight budget.How to make an interesting garden for next to nothing.

I love gardening but I never seem to have much spare money left to spend on it, so I’ve had to be creative and come up with ways to make an interesting garden on a very tight,shoestring budget. My family spend a lot of time outdoors in the garden, eating, playing or simply lounging and I love creating a great place for us all to enjoy.I love it even more when I know just how little money I've had to spend to get it that way.

I never throw much away, I keep any broken old mugs or interesting jars, glasses and tin pots as I find they make interesting containers for small plants. Herbs look particularly good in small pots - keep them just outside the kitchen, fresh herbs are so much better than the dried variety. You can buy living herb plants from most supermarkets now, if you pot them up outside they will grow well and last for years. I have had the same mint, chives and parsley plants for at least five years and they are still going strong. They have saved me a small fortune over the years.

Save seeds, all of the flowers in the pictures above have been grown from seed. You can ask friends or family to save a few seed heads if they have interesting plants. When you have grown them you can always give a couple of seedlings back to the people who gave you the seeds in the first place.

Take cuttings from other peoples interesting plants - remember to ask for permission first though. Many cuttings can be persuaded to grow roots even if you just stick them in a glass of water on a sunny window ledge.

I scour charity shops and car boot sales for interesting looking things that I can place around the garden. I like to surprise people, children love hunting around in my garden as they never know what they might find.

The fish by the water feature cost me 50p in a junk shop, he looks wonderful when the sun shines through his glass scales. The small copper lizards were four for a pound at a church tabletop sale - a real bargain, I have them dotted around on walls.

I use old wall hanging candle holders as hangers for wind chimes and hanging baskets. The sun face wind chime with the bells was given to me by the shopkeeper because it was the last one he had and it had gone rusty! I happen to think it looks beautiful that way and would have rusted soon enough anyway, as you can tell from the hanging bells that I did buy from him the same day.

When I take a trip to the beach I always pick up a few seashells as they make an interesting and practical mulch for pots, they keep moisture in and the weeds out. Beaches are a great place to pick up interesting looking driftwood too. Never take large rocks or cobbles from beaches it adds to coastal erosion.

The cobbles dotted around can be bought from most builders yards for a couple of pounds a bag. Much cheaper than if you go to a garden centre.

Lighting is an important tool to make a garden more interesting. I use old lanterns and stand them in pots of varying heights filled with soil and sand then top them with shells and pebble.

I make my own compost by saving all the raw vegetable scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds and cuttings from the garden, I have two compost bins on the go at all times so I have a ready supply of nicely rotted compost whenever I need it. I also collect the fallen leaves in autumn and make a leaf pile in a secluded spot at the bottom of the garden. This too makes an excellent compost.

If you group together fun, different things it makes for a much more interesting garden than a very formal one in my opinion. And if you follow these small tips it shouldn’t cost you very much either.