Maximize Your Return It can be costly to fill a garden with plants, especially perennials. My mentors, the late George “Doc” and Katy Abraham, shared gardening tips on their TV show for 20 years and on their radio show and in their syndicated newspaper column for half a century. They noted you could maximize the return on your investment in a variety of ways. Start with seeds or smaller plants and root your own cuttings. Also, use tough, never-fail “backbone” plants like peony, iris, coneflower and black-eyed Susan as anchor plants, filling in with annuals and smaller perennials later. Self-seeding annuals like larkspur, bachelor’s buttons (shown) and cleome are really good at filling a space on the cheap—and seeding a new crop of flowers year after year. 10 Inexpensive Plants that will Make Your Garden Pop. https://www.familyhandyman.com