Barkhymer, who lives in North Coventry Township, Chester County, recognizes that "you can easily spend a fortune on annuals." So she does mostly serial perennials: peonies and irises to bloom in spring; yuccas, black-eyed Susans and coneflowers in summer; sedums like 'Autumn Joy' in late summer and fall.
She scouts out lesser-known, less-expensive plant nurseries in Lancaster County. She pots up 'Angel wing' begonia, basil, rosemary and bay leaf in fall, takes them indoors and reuses in spring. She saves seeds, cruises through Craigslist. And she propagates with cuttings: rhododendron and azalea in seed-starting mix and angel's trumpet in water.
"I can't believe people pay so much money for those," Barkhymer says of the pendulous trumpets that grow as annuals here. "I just lop off a branch and pop it in water."
She looks for plants that reseed - cleome, cosmos, bronze fennel - and participates in a perennial-plant swap with friends every spring. They load up on each other's irises, ground covers, poppies and small shrubs.
"I've gotten a lot of stuff I didn't have before, and it didn't cost me a cent," Barkhymer says.
Many of the swapped plants resulted from dividing, another reason to go the perennial route - and an easy way to economize.
Susan Dannenberg of Elkins Park is the kind of gardener who, were she not so kind, would shame us all. "Before you go out and buy anything," she says, "think about what kind of garden is suited to your area. Think of the long haul."
In other words, fashion a garden that's tended with well-made tools, enriched with organic compost and shredded-leaf mulch, and filled with native plants, such as phlox and maidenhair fern. Natives need less water, fertilizer, coddling and time.
"All of this pays off in the long run," she says.
