A PENNY-PINCHING garden lover has revealed how she saves a whopping £300 a year on garden plants, using a little known hack.
Lucie Nicola, 41, is obsessed with , so much so that she spends hours every day
The model and soft-play owner, who loves to get glammed up to do her work, has spent around £6,000 on her garden but saves around £300 a year by buying dying plants from the yellow sticker aisle of her local garden centre, and bringing them back to life.
Lucie, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire also takes cutting and re-plants flowers to save , and keep her garden blooming.
“The reduced plants are my thing – it’s always good to get a bargain,”; she told SWNS.
“I’ll dead head old plants, water it, nurture and bring it back to life.
“I think when you grab a bargain, it’s more rewarding than paying full price. Within the plants world, if I see anything reduced I’m automatically attracted to it.
“I’m sometimes walking out with a twig but I know what the potential is.”;
Lucie began to love gardening from the tender age of 7, when she became envious of her neighbours‘ garden.
She said: “My neighbour had an immaculate garden – I thought I couldn’t wait to do it. That’s where the passion comes from.
“But it’s trial and error – it’s all self-taught.
“Not everything has been successful, but that’s the beauty of gardening; it doesn’t matter if plants don’t take or they die because they’re all different – no two gardens are the same.”;
Lucie shared some helpful tips for making sure you garden always looks it’s best, without breaking the bank.
She said: “If you’re in a garden centre, always go to reduction sale rail.
“I love a yellow sticker.
“A bit of dead-heading, watering, and TLC, and you can bring it back to life.
“Also buy perennials, which means they come back year after year.
“They are things that you plant, last the season, and then re-bloom.
“You can take cuttings from them and re-plant so you get multiple plants out of the one plant.
“Lavender is a great choice; hot lip salvia is beautiful, too.
“Know what you’re planting, always look at instructions on plants and suss out how long you’re getting out of it.”;
Lucie added that she also wants to challenge the notion that gardening is just for “old people.”;
She said: “The stigma of gardening is that it’s for old people and it’s not fun and trendy, but I really disagree with that and try to twist that – I’m so passionate about it.
“Gardening needs to be more fun and quirky – bring the fun into it!
“Take with and make it sexy – that’s my spin on gardening.
“I like to feel as beautiful as I can in my garden.
“People go to the gym in gym wear as it makes them feel better, so I apply the same philosophy to gardening.
“I lounge around the house in old clothes, but not in the garden; it’s like a night out in my garden.”;
Lucie has even managed to tempt husband Andy, 47 into the garden, after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005.
She said: “Where his illness has restricted him, gardening has given him some freedom.
“It’s so lovely to see – someone said we’re the and Ken of the gardening world because I’m glammed up and he’s topless!”;
