Saving money on plants

I love couponing and saving money. As an accountant I want to get the best ROI from my plants, part of which means paying less for my plants so they can pay themselves off earlier. Some great places to get plants:

Free or cheap:
Freecycle
Craigslist
Trade with friends
Ask a neighbor

Paying:
End of season clearance at Meijer, Home Depot, Kmart or Lowe’s. (just make sure plants look in good condition and have time to get established before winter)
I picked up a dwarf Bartlett pear tree from K-Mart for $10, a  Dwarf Honeycrisp and Dwarf McIntosh apple tree from Meijer for 12.99 and 6.99 each. They do require more pruning but I think they come larger sized than some of the other stores. Home depot had 50% off trees but I missed it. Sad.

Websites with deals. Gurneys, Spring Hill Nurseries, and a few others have deals with free shipping or $25 off a purchase of $50. If you buy what is already on sale and add the 50% off you can score some sweet deals. Signing up for their newsletter is great. They will email you when they have deals.

I really like the $25 off $50 deal. You don't get free shipping but this more than makes up for it. The idea is to get as close to $50 as you can.

My purchase at Gurneys:

1TOP HAT DWARF BLUEBERRY $11.99 (regular 11.99)
1RASPBERRY BRISTOL $4.50 (regular 8.99)
1PIXIE CRUNCH APPLE LI'L BIG 2-3) $11.24 (regular price 44.95)
1JEWEL RASPBERRY $5.00 (regular 6.95)
1PRIME JAN BLACKBERRY $6.00 (regular 6.00)
1 OUR CHOICE BUSH CHERRY $13.59 (regular price 29.95)

First Total 52.32
Less deal 25.00
Total 27.32
Shipping 8.35
Final total $35.67
Notice I purchased a tree that cost more originally than I paid for everything. My total would have been $108.83. I did pay full price for the blueberry but I my impatience got the best of me and I wanted to plant it before the winter sets in.

I go onto the sites about every two weeks and look to see what is on super sale. That is how I found the apple tree.

I will not receive my mini dwarf apple tree until the spring ship but that is fine with me. After the discount I got it for less than 10 bucks. Even I can wait for that. Plus it gives me more time to plan my arbor. I only have one tree planted where I am planning my little tree farm so I have lots of thinking to do.