Fruit trees 60% off.
Come dig in my yard for free perennial plants.
Thinning out my award-winning irises.

No, this isn’t an invitation to raid my landscaping. I was on the KSL classified ads, a free online classified list attached to a local television station’s news site, and saw all of these posted. Fall is a great time to get free or very low-cost plants, and a great time to get them established in your yard now that the worst of the summer heat is past and the winter storms are still a little way off yet. Most yard work happens in the spring before it grows terribly hot, and again in the fall once it has begun to cool off again–at least, I know it works that way in my yard.

There are lots of places to find these kinds of deal. Craigslist.com has listings for cities and regions all over the world. There are also Freecycle lists out there for areas all over the world. There are hundreds of groups just for the USA, and hundreds of other countries that also have lists. you can see if there’s a group that corresponds through e-mail–usually Yahoo Groups–near you at Freecycle.org.

This is also a great way to find out where people are giving away free plants, landscaping rocks, fill dirt, decorative edging and more–and if you have something you don’t need anymore, it’s a great way to re-home it. Another advantage to sites like these is the fact that those plants/rocks/etc aren’t going to landfills, but to someone who can use and love them. Some listings require you to do your own digging, but what’s five minutes of digging in the dirt when you’re being given fifty dollars worth of healthy plants?

As for me, I’m wishing about now that I lived a little closer to the Salt Lake Valley, and that I had another garden bed ready to accept some plants, but that’ll have to wait until next spring.