Dirt Cheap : Frugal gardeners share their ideas for cheap containers plant labels, bug remedies, mulches and more

Some saved 12 cents by mailing us postcards; others reused old envelopes and wrote their letters on the backs of office memos, one proudly pointing out that his old typewriter had come from a thrift shop. Most admitted to being thrifty types.

Said Annie Ko of Torrance in her letter, “As you can see, I am a real cheapskate, using the free note pad from the local Realtor.”

They were responding to our request for frugal gardening ideas, little or big ways to save money in the garden.

Another began, “I love to reuse. I also love to garden, and here is how I combine the two.” Most of the frugal ideas submitted had to do with reusing and recycling things.

There were ideas for cheap containers, plant labels, homemade bug remedies, inexpensive mulches and a whole garden built for $35. But plant ties were the most popular use for second-hand materials, beginning with the ties this newspaper comes wrapped in.

This and several other money-saving suggestions were sent in by more than one reader, so the prizes--tickets to the Los Angeles Garden Show in October--will go to those with the earliest postmarks.

Penny-pinching plant ties

The plastic ties that bind this newspaper were used by lots of readers. Suzanne Pavlocak of Walnut said they are “sturdy stuff.” Several, including Jane Czajkowski and Joe Aviles of West Covina, loop Times’ ties together to make string that can be used to trellis sweet peas and other climbers.

Tying together the rings that hold beverage six-packs also creates a trellis, said Carolyn Meredith of Pasadena.

Slice up strips of dry cleaning bags, suggested Julie Markes of Los Angeles, who searched for years for “clear tape to tie my white ‘Cecile Brunner’ to my white columns,” before discovering it in her closet.

Second life for stockings

Stretchiness is important in plant ties that are to last longer than a season, so the tie can expand along with the branch. Readers have discovered that stockings and pantyhose work perfectly, and Masago Armstrong of Claremont pointed out, “Women throw out stockings with runs by the handful.”

They can also be used to make hammock-like slings for the fruits of melons and other large vegetables when the plants are trained on trellises, suggested Michele Hewitt of Canoga Park. Hose can also be slipped over growing cabbage heads to keep cabbage worms away.

“I no longer curse when my pantyhose gets a snag; it has a second life,” Hewitt said.

Men have their equivalent: Rose Thomas of Victorville told us her husband cuts up old undershirts for plant ties.

Pest control for pennies

Save all your eggshells, crush them in a paper bag and use them to encircle plants, suggested Irving Hansen of Encinitas, if you want to keep snails and slugs away. The slimy creatures don’t like to crawl over the sharp edges.

Or encircle plants with wood ash from the fireplace, one of several tips from Barbara Beckner of Studio City.

She lures slugs and snails out of hiding with citrus skins. “In the morning, gather the skins and discard, or remove and destroy the slugs and snails and reuse skins for two to three days.” Use of gloves is advised.

Another of her home remedies: Undiluted buttermilk or a mix of one part water and two parts rubbing alcohol works great on mealy bugs and scale. Daub a little on the insects with a cloth scrap.

“Plant cosmos at the ends of each row of corn, and you will have no ear worms,” said E.J. Graff of Glendale.

Ordinary yeast in a mayonnaise jar will trap flies, according to Dan and Linda Yokoyama of Fullerton. Drill three 3/8-inch holes in the lid, add one envelope of yeast and fill one-quarter full with water. “It will soon fill with flies,” they said.

“Straight white vinegar on weeds in cracks will do away with them safely,” wrote Jeanne Dore of Ventura.

Fill an empty squeeze-type catsup bottle with water and some dishwashing liquid, shake it up and--without inverting it--squeeze frothy soap bubbles onto aphids. “I found this more effective than soap sprays and much, much cheaper,” said Jeanne Caputo of Valencia.

Double duty

“While working in the garden or mowing the lawn, I wear my golf shoes,” said Mona Asorian of Palos Verdes Estates. “The cleats go into the ground and naturally aerate the lawn. Two jobs at one time!”

Labels from leftovers

Plant labels were a close second as a use for recycled materials.

Cut-up sections of discarded mini-blinds make perfect plant labels, and the first to send in this clever idea was Masago Armstrong of Claremont.

Strips cut from white bleach bottles were suggested by Jerry Dubb of Montebello, and others mentioned cutting up a variety of other plastic containers.

Megan and Jason Dietz of La Can~ada Flintridge, ages 12 and 10, respectively, use a leftover that’s common in their lives--Popsicle sticks.

Cheap stakes

Several readers suggested saving tree prunings for plant stakes, and Janet Jones of Long Beach collects the stakes from politicians’ signs as well.

Grow your own bamboo for stakes, suggested Pamela Deuel of Los Angeles. “In many countries where bamboo thrives, farmers grow a clump of it to use for building materials.”

She grows her own in a 3-by-6-foot grove, using the sticks as plant supports, protection against the dragging garden hose and as stirring sticks. “And what satisfaction to grow tools you can use instead of buying them,” she said.

Cost-saving cut-ups

A lot of items are reusable, once you cleverly cut them up.

Cut the bottoms out of nursery flats, said Harvey Feder of Encino, then cut the flat, grill-like pieces into half-circles that fit on top of the soil inside a pot. They’ll keep squirrels and other animals from digging in the pots and look as neat as the cast iron grills the city puts around urban trees.

Slice nursery containers into rings, cut the rings in half and use them to help contain irrigation water on slopes or around new plants, suggested Joan Spangler of Fullerton. “Most frugal gardeners are, by nature, unable to throw away those containers, just in case they might need a planter later.”

Cut-up coat hangers make supports for greenhouse tunnels over rows of vegetables. Mary Yogi of West Hollywood sent a diagram showing how to do it: Cut off the two V-shaped ends and bend them into U’s, push them into the ground, then cover with clear plastic sheeting, or perhaps with one of the garden fabrics, like Reemay, for a warm, fast start in spring.

Wrap pieces of coat hanger around the hose near the faucet if you want to prevent kinking, said Betty Newton of Arcadia.

Cost-efficient containers

Yogurt cups make nifty seed starting pots, said M. Wong of Irvine. She cuts off the bottom, punches several holes in the lid, puts it on, and turns the whole thing upside down. She cuts a strip out of the bottom to use as a label. When it’s time to transplant, she pops off the lid so she can gently push the plant out.

One-pound coffee cans make good reusable containers for larger plants, Jerry Dubb of Montebello has found. If you open and remove both ends (using the plastic lid as a bottom), then make a “piston” out of a smaller can, you can push the plant out when it’s time to repot.

Save on gravel

Several readers have discovered that you don’t really need gravel in the bottom of pots.

Patches of old window screen can cover the drainage hole, suggested Marybeth Foley of Rancho Santa Margarita. It keeps soil in and sow bugs and slugs out.

Or use coffee filters over the drainage holes, wrote Ellen Middleton of Claremont.

If you want additional drainage material in the bottoms of containers, try foam plastic peanuts, but “only the ones shaped like an S,” said A.Y. Koki of Los Angeles. Other shapes are too soft.

More cheap containers

Chop the tops of gallon-sized grocery store water containers (the kind with the little faucets), and use them as containers with handles to store blood meal, bone meal and other fertilizers. They line up neatly on a shelf. “I can actually find things,” said Irving Hansen of Encinitas.

Use empty household sprayers to hold various foliar fertilizers and pest control sprays, Robert Hill of Oxnard suggested. They’re just the right size for most jobs, and you can avoid using the same tank sprayer for different chemicals. If they contain poisons, make sure to mark them boldly so no one mistakes a poison for a window cleaner.

Save those toilet paper tubes and use them as containers, said Gary Delk of La Habra. Line them up in another container with tall sides and drainage, fill with soil, leaving a little collar around the top, and sow. When plants are large enough, plant the whole thing in the garden and the little cardboard collar will protect from cutworms as the rest decomposes. “It works,” he said. He uses this technique in classes he teaches.

The ultimate seed-starting trays may be the plastic trays with clear plastic tops found at delis and salad bars, suggested Carolyn Meredith of Pasadena.

The largest cheapskate containers were made from old tires, some sitting on their rims as a pot sits on a pedestal. Marianne McCann of Encino said she cuts part of the inside edge of the tire away with a utility knife, then turns the tire inside out while it is still on the rim, an idea she picked up in her old Michigan neighborhood.

Free food from kitchen

Run kitchen scraps (but not meat or fats) through a blender, suggested Karen Clarke of Lancaster, then “step outside and pour the viscous mess around the base of bushes, trees, vegetable or ornamentals. On a hot day, the earth has pretty much eaten the meal by evening.”

Put kitchen scraps in little holes all over the garden, suggested Joanne MacInnis of Irvine, and cover them with soil. She’s slowly improving her “river-bottom adobe” this way.

Money-saving mulch

“For a large vegetable garden, I have used old carpet to keep down the weeds and to conserve water. It can be cut into various widths depending on the distance between the rows,” wrote Jim Macdonald of San Clemente.

The Times was also a popular source of mulch and is apparently at least partially responsible for one miraculous garden make-over.

Virginia Collings of Covina wrote, “We originally moved into a house with a very large yard full of Bermuda grass and weeds. We used Roundup [a systemic herbicide that kills Bermuda to the roots], a lot of amendment and then thick layers of newspapers before we topped the beds with bark. Four years later, it would be difficult to believe that this is the same yard.”

Low-priced landscapes

Most of the money-saving ideas had to do with the care and maintenance of a garden, but a few suggested ways to landscape a garden with inexpensive plants and materials, recycled broken concrete being the favorite material.

Charlene Gallagher of North Hollywood thriftily landscaped an entire corner of her garden with a fish pond and fountain for only $35, and most of that was spent on a cast iron fish-shaped sprinkler that she used as a fountain.

She sank a big galvanized tub that had been her dogs’ washtub into the ground (noting that the dogs “didn’t seem to mind”), put in a water lily that someone gave her and some “feeder” goldfish (“$1 for six”), then planted the surroundings with things she started from cuttings or divisions. The old hookup line for an ice maker kept the pond constantly full.

“When I needed stepping stones for my garden, I found broken-up pieces of concrete dumped (illegally) in open fields,” said Vikki Gerdes of Fontana. “Not only do I get free steppingstones, but I cleaned up the environment too.”

“Here is an idea for cheap gardens. Use old dresser drawers [found in the trash] to make a vegetable patch,” wrote Saige Spinney of Hollywood.

Free plants

Many pointed out that growing your own plants--from seed, cuttings or divisions--is a big money-saver, and several pointed out that lots of plants “volunteer,” or appear on their own, in the garden.

Jack Russell took advantage of volunteer plants, filling a garden with them. “I suppose this would garner one official entry into the Cheapskate Club,” he said, sending a list of plants that have volunteered.

They include aeoniun, several asparagus ferns, bird of paradise bush, two kinds of cassia, a cereus, two crassulas, a Chinese elm, edible fig, Jerusalem cherry, Mexican sage and fan palm, pyracantha and Trinidad flame bush.

“As you can see, if one were seeking to become ‘King of Cheap,’ one could grow most of these plants without fertilizer, and some of them without water.”