great vintage flower planters for about $5 and 15 minutes! #MayGarden #upcycle #flowers #planterbox

Doubling the amount of Portland Cement in my normal hypertufa recipe plus adding the "rebar" appears to have made all the difference. My hands came out perfectly and are hard as a rock. Or cement.

The recipe for hypertufa can be found on Hometalk on this post - http://www.hometalk.com/1285023/making-light... or on my blog on this post - http://www.houseofhawthornes.com/2012/05/mak... .

items I was not using. The boat is one of those book cases for a childs room I bought for $5. The fence posts were $2 for the 4. The planters are tin paint cans from the hardware store or pots I had lying around. The flag pole is a metal pipe I wrapped in blue rope. The solar lights and small flags are from the $ store. Everything, (boat, planters, fence posts) was all done with red/white/blue spray paint. The Nantucket Boat Ferry sign has been stored in my shed for years. The red/white/blue flowers were all about $45. The flag is an honor flag purchased at the museum which has the names of all of the 9-11 victims embedded within. The dog is not included as I tell him it's a good thing he was free as I now call him the $25K-nine!

jars and flag accents can turn your picnic table red, white and blue! Go through to my blog post for recipes for the best Chicken BBQ sauce ever and my grandmother's homemade potato salad too!

http://ourfairfieldhomeandgarden.com/july-4...

#OutdoorLiving

A simple flower decoration of mini lilacs in a white vase, brings the scent of Spring into your home.

herehttp://www.onemoretimeevents.com/2013/05/outdoor-succulent-table-centerpiece.html

seem to buy houses that have no landscaping, I have learned how to do it on the cheap.

Here are some of my best tips: .

#1 - Use as many free materials in your landscape as you can. Every part of the world has at least one thing in abundance that you can use for free, be it gravel, rocks or stones; wood,pallets or pine needles; dumpsters, landfill sites or Craig's List and Freecycling networks as cheap sources for repurposed items. Find out what's in your own neighbourhood or town and use it! I've used my local freecycling network to find plants and shrubs for free. I got a whole lilac hedge that way, it really works!!

#2 - Beg for plant divisions or cuttings from family, friends and neighbours. Anyone who has perennials , bulbs or tubers will have to be dividing them up every so often and will be happy to let you have the extras.

#3 - Look for local gardening clubs, they usually have plant sales once or twice a year to raise money for the club and you can get beautiful plants for much less than gardening centers sell them. Plus you know they will survive in your climate because the local gardeners have grown them.

#4 - Watch for end-of-season sales. You can pick up loads of plants at a discount from department stores that have seasonal garden centers. That's where you can pick up your trees and shrubs for less and save big!

#5 - Grow your own plants from seed. Some plants are super simple to grow, you can even just toss the seeds out in your garden at the right time and they'll grow well. Hardy geraniums,sunflowers and pansies are easy to start from seed. Poppies and cosmos are good examples of seeds you can just sow directly in the garden. Opium poppies can even be sown while there is still snow on the garden

#6 - Grow plants that self-seed or spread easily. Examples are creeping thyme, culinary thyme, Johnny Jump-ups, Ladies' Mantle, campanula, euphorbia, lamium, bugleweed, poppies and bee balm. I don't quite understand the desire for growing borderline plants in the garden. I personally don't want to drag some plant kicking and screaming into my garden, I'd much rather have ones that are happily growing and flowering and self-seeding all over.

The best part about rampant growers and self-seeders is that every year, you can dig up the extras and sell them at a yard sale to make some extra cash for the landscaping items that you can't get for free.

Hope I've been able to give you at least one tip you can use. Happy gardening!

#landscaping #gardening #Maygarden