Updated
Don’t spend a fortune on your garden — you can get lots of free plants using the strategies below!
Buying plants for your garden can add up quickly. Here are some easy ways to get free plants and get your garden going on the cheap!
If you haven’t done much gardening, you might not know that gardeners often divide their plants to give them more room to grow. These divisions can be planted to make new plants.
What does this mean for the frugal or beginning gardener?
Two things:
1) Gardeners in your area have starter plants you can have for free, and 2) You can divide what you already have and make more plants.
How to Get Free Plants
Just to clarify for novice gardeners: We’re talking about perennials here, plants that return year after year. If you’re on a budget or strapped for time, perennials are the way to go.
Annual plants have to be purchased (or grown from seed) each season. More time consuming and expensive, so not for me!
I have a mainly perennial garden, largely populated by plants I got for free. And if you really want to save money (and help the planet), I recommend focusing on edibles so the free plants in your yard produce bountiful free food for your family!
(Most of what’s in my yard is edible. Find out how I grow plentiful food on 1/10 acre using permaculture principles in my post about ways to get more food from your yard.)
My yard is filled with plants given to me by other gardeners that I’ve slowly divided over the years. A couple rhubarb divisions got me started on my obsession with rhubarb, and now 5 hardy plants give us more than we need for delicious homemade fruit leather, crisps, and more.
I’ve spread creeping thyme everywhere I can to create a living groundcover that saves on mulch, smells amazing, and attracts pollinators.
Lemon balm and mint make tasty additions to teas, while chives and oregano add flavor and healthy antioxidants to our cooking. My first raspberry plants and numerous daylilies, flax plants, echinacea, bee balm, yarrow, and other flowers also came from area gardeners thinning their beds.
And now I spread the love, inviting other gardeners to take divisions or plants growing where I don’t want them.
Want to learn to grow some of your own food, even if you know absolutely nothing about gardening? Grab my quickstart guide for newbie gardeners below!
Where to Find Free Plants
There are so many sources for free plants! Here are my favorites:
1) From Your Own Yard!
Start by shopping your own yard and thinking about what you’d be happy to have more of. What perennials are already growing in your yard? Take stock of what’s already growing that you could divide.
Flowers, perennial herbs, and foliage plants can all be split after a season or two to get established and used to start new plants elsewhere in your yard. Sometimes plants will plant themselves places you don’t want (called “volunteers”), and you can dig them up and replant them where they can be more useful.
Also remember that some plants you might consider weeds can be useful, even attractive. Clover, for instance, not only adds nitrogen to your soil and attracts pollinators, but is also an excellent medicinal plant. Dandelions are extremely nutritious and provide food for pollinators while aerating your yard with their long tap roots. Purslane is a prized as a superfood in much of the world, though unwitting American gardeners waste time eradicating it.
Learn more: What to know about weeds you can eat and remedies from your yard.
2) Friends and Neighbors
Have you admired the perennial bed a friend or neighbor has? Just ask if you can have a few divisions the next time they’re thinning their beds. You could also arrange a plant or seed swap with a group of friends.
3) Freecycle, Craigslist, Other Community Lists
Freecycle can be a gold mine for gardeners looking for free plants (and seeds, tools and other garden gear). Put out a call for what you’d like, or if you’re not sure, just say you’re looking for some perennials, and does anyone have some they’re dividing or getting rid of?
Freecycle and other community-based lists have been my primary source of free plant material, as well as pots, stakes, and other garden tools.
If you belong to other community lists that accepts such posts, put out a call for plants there as well.
4) Keep Your Eyes Open for Free Plants Around Town
Some gardeners will leave their unwanted divisions by the curb for frugal gardeners to scavenge. Be on the lookout for road work or other construction projects where plants may be rescued. Also ask when you see someone’s yard being redone by a landscaper. They’ll be tearing out existing plants, which they’ll likely be happy to give to you.
5) Check the Community Drop Site for Free Plants
Our town operates a compost site where residents drop off leaves and pick up free compost to use in their yards. They keep a little pile of dirt by the entrance where gardeners can temporarily plant divisions till another gardener picks them up and gives them a new home.
Other places to look: Garden clubs and community garden organizations in your town.
Nurseries might also have some plants that don’t make the cut for selling that they’d otherwise throw away. No harm in asking!
Getting Your Free Plants
Gardeners will know about the preferences of the plants they’re giving you, so take advantage of their knowledge! Be sure to get any information the gardener has about preferred light, soil, and watering.
Different plants have different preferred times for divisions, but the owner of the plant will let you know. Expect early and mid spring and fall to be high dividing times. (It varies by climate and plant.) The height of summer heat is not ideal for divisions, so send out those requests for plants early and later in the growing season.
If you’re dividing your own plants, do some reading about the variety and when it’s best to replant. You should water the plant well before and after dividing. Here’s a helpful tipsheet from the University of Minnesota Extension. If you’re in a warmer climate, you might find something similar from your state extension service.
Caring for your free plants after transplanting: Expect your division to look a little droopy till it gets used to its new home. Be sure to keep it well watered and it will recover. After a couple seasons in your yard, you can divide it again if you want to spread it to additional areas.
For the More Advanced and Adventurous Gardener:
Even if you don’t have something to dig up, you can start a lot of new plants from cuttings. It’s a little more finicky, but it’s doable. You can also propagate shrubs this way, like the amazing elderberry. Check out this tutorial on propagating plants from Anna at Green Talk.
And of course, you can grow plants from seeds (also easy to get free from other gardeners or harvest yourself), but that’s a topic for another post. 🙂
Now that you know how to get free plants, start finding some near you and enjoy your free garden this season! What plants have you gotten from other gardeners and which are you hoping to get? Share in the comments!
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Photo credits: natacha85, Andrea44, SLF, strecosa
Hi, I'm Susannah, a garden geek, energy nerd, and fan of healthy food and natural remedies. Need some simple, practical solutions for living healthier and greener? You've come to the right place! More about me and my green projects
I actually propagate my annuals like basil so I can have more instead of waiting for seeds to germinate. Thanks for including me in your round up.
I’ve read about that — great idea!
Great inspiration to getting affordable extra garden additives! What fun sharing arrangements your area has set up.
Thanks! A lot of these ways to get free plants don’t require any pre-existing networks, though there are so many freecycles out there, maybe you have one in your area as well. Happy planting!
How can I get free rhubarb
Plants?
Just put out a call on Freecycle or local Facebook free groups or ask neighboring gardeners. Someone will certainly have one they’ll be hapy to divide for you in fall.
I refuse to pay the high prices of nursery plants so have found several ways to expand my perennials… When we bought our house, it already had many sturdy perennials like hostas, lilies., and ornamental grasses. Divide, divide, divide! After 5 yrs, I have multiplied the few I started with into yards of neat hosta/lily borders surrounding my house. Hostas allow you to mow right under them, eliminating need for weed whipping. Young man bought old house next door with intent to dig up all plantings by previous owner. It was a lot of work, but I dug up all his lily of valley, day lilies, hostas, bleeding heart, wild roses, and other misc that had been buried in weedy flower beds and transplanted them into my yard. . An empty lot across the street yielded 15+ peony bushes and tulips that were just being mowed over. A friend who was changing her landscaping let me have a myriad of exotic hostas and lilies. Occasionally I buy end of season perennials that go for real cheap because they are barely alive and I nurse them back to health. I have friends who are planning on moving later this year, so I will be able to dig up starts from raspberries, rhubarb, and grapes. They will be much hardier than nursery stock since they are already acclimated to our area. There are tons of free stuff out there if you are willing to do the work and have a good network to find them!!!!!
It sounds like you are an extremely enterprising gardener (and rescuer of plants), Michelle! Your garden must be a delight!