Before you discount the idea of free funeral plants, bear with me on this one. Getting free plants from a funeral home is possible. However, you may have to step out of your comfort zone for this trick. Even those of you who consider yourselves outgoing might feel a bit odd about using a funeral home as a free plant source (This is one of the main reasons I left it out of Ways To Get Plants For Free).

Funeral homes are an excellent place to get free plants because almost everyone has the same initial reaction as you did. Ultimately, this means that in a nation where there is competition for virtually everything, this is one area where hardly a single person is taking advantage.

Almost every town has at least one funeral home and most funerals involve flowers and plants. Years ago, I became aware that many families leave plants and flowers at the funeral home for various reasons. Often, it’s because many people just don’t have the space for all of them at home.

How to Get Free Funeral Plants

Here’s how to set up a local funeral home connection.

The first step is to call the funeral home, introduce yourself, and explain your offer to them. You can solve their problem of what to do with the plants—at no cost to them. If they express any interest at all, leave your name, phone number, and email. You should promise to pick up any plants within 24 hours of a phone call.

If you don’t sense a positive reaction to your offer, ask to speak to a supervisor or owner, and repeat the offer. If that call doesn’t garner some interest, thank them and move on to the next name on your list.

You might be surprised when you get your first return phone call. At this point, ask for specific directions as to when and where to pick up the plants. Follow them to the letter. After the first pick up, follow up with a note to the funeral home, thanking them and giving them your contact information again.

What to do With Your Haul

Once the plants are at home, do some sorting and decide which plants can go outdoors and which are going to become houseplants. Depending on the time of year and the weather in your zone, you can either get your new plants in the ground or treat the whole batch as house plants until you can safely plant them outside.

There may be a few plants in the bunch that has seen better days by the time you get them home. This is nothing to fret about. You can add the plant to your compost pile, put the soil in your container of potting mix and clean up the pot so you can put it to good use.

All in all, you stand to gain many plants for very little effort. It’s all a matter of getting over that first hurdle most people have about dealing with a funeral home.

Potting up plants is a messy business. Even when I’m being careful, I manage to get soil everywhere.

One of my favorite plants in my home, though, requires no soil at all. I bought the plant at the grocery store several years ago for about $3 and today, it’s almost as tall as me! All it needs is water to flourish.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

But I’m absolutely serious. It’s possible to grow plants without soil. This is something that air plant enthusiasts already know. There are a host of plants that grow in water.

Plants That Grow in Water

Most people think of houseplants as soil-bound creatures, but not every plant needs the earth to survive. Many plants actually thrive in water. Here are five plants that grow in water.

Lucky Bamboo

My lucky bamboo plant is my pride and joy. I brought it home several years ago and never thought it would become as big as it has. I simply filled up a vase with rocks and pebbles, set the bamboo inside, and topped it off with water. The plant has been growing like a weed ever since! While some sources might caution against using regular ole’ tap water to satisfy a bamboo plant’s thirst, my plant has gotten by just fine with it.

Did you know that lucky bamboo is also pet safe? It’s an ideal low-maintenance plant that’s non-toxic to dogs, cats, and birds.

Pothos

Also known as Devil’s Ivy, this trailing plant grows exceptionally well in water. Unlike bamboo, though, pothos plants require some fertilization. Any all-purpose liquid fertilizer should do the trick. In my experience, pothos plants don’t need too much attention, so they’re another excellent choice for busy plant lovers.

Philodendron

My heart-leaf philodendron is one of my favorite houseplants because it requires so little care. It’s a stunning hanging plant that does well in water. If you plan to grow it in water, though, make sure to change the water frequently and check for algae growth.

Dracaena

This woody-stemmed plant is also well suited for growing in water. Filtered water is best, and it should be changed frequently to prevent algae growth. It’s a fairly big plant, so pick out a large vessel to support it.

English Ivy

It’s possible to grow English ivy cuttings in a glass jar or vase. It’ll take a long time before the plant is ready to transplant into soil. It’s a quick-growing trailing plant, so it’s great for hanging planters. Add ivy to the top of a bookshelf and let the vine trail down for a wild effect.

Propagation

You can also propagate many indoor plants using water. This entails taking cuttings from an existing plant and rooting the piece in water. It can take some time for the roots to develop, but once they do, you just need to plant the piece in soil.

It’s an easy way to create more greenery for your home. You can also propagate new plants to share with friends and family. Some people also like to swap cuttings by mail.

Get free plants and save money on your favorite pastime. 

While gardening is one of the largest hobbies in the US, how expensive a hobby depends a lot on how you approach it. It can be quite an expensive hobby when you purchase everything retail. However, it can also be an extremely frugal hobby for those who put a little extra time and creativity into how they get their gardens started.

In fact, it is quite possible to get an entire garden of plants for free. It’s a challenge that I succeeded in doing in the past. Below you’ll find ten ways that I was able to accomplish growing my garden for free.

How to Get Free Plants

Free plants? Sounds like it’s too good to be true!

It’s actually way easier than you’d think to source plants for free. Here are 10 ways to get free plants for your garden.

Craigslist and Other Online Marketplaces

Post a wanted ad on Craigslist, asking for free plants. Most gardeners love to help others out when they have excess in their own garden. (If you have some plants already, this is a great place to offer to trade plants). Another free site you can request free plants is on FreeCycle. You can also browse online marketplaces to find people who are giving their plants away for free. I often find local sellers giving away houseplants, cuttings, and perennials on the Facebook Marketplace. Something else you might find on these sites is free dirt. When people do any kind of landscaping or construction, there’s often a lot of digging going on. They’re left with a pile of dirt and nowhere to put it. Usually, as long as you have a way to pick up the extra soil, it’s all yours!

Nursery

While you wouldn’t typically think about getting free plants at a nursery, they can be an excellent place to get them. Always take the time to ask if the nursery has any plants that they’re going to be tossing? A part of the business is that sad-looking plants don’t sell well and they need to get rid of them somehow. That often means throwing them out. When you pick up free plants this way, they won’t look very good the first year, but with some TLC many can make a wonderful come back and look great for years to come.

Landscaping Crews

Another great place to get free plants is from landscaping crews. If you see a landscaping crew working on a job where they are replacing displays, be sure to stop and ask what they are going to do with the plants they are taking out. Often times the plants being replaced are going to be thrown out or composted. It doesn’t hurt to ask, and more often than not you’ll come away with a large number of plants.

One note with this approach is that you’d better be prepared for them to “gift” you with everything they were going to compost. You will want to travel with a kit for these situations in your vehicle which includes empty boxes, buckets, trash bags, garden gloves, etc. This approach is especially effective in civic gardens or at large commercial jobs.

Yellow Pages

Not having luck in finding landscapers on the road? Another effective approach is to open up the yellow pages and get on the phone. Call all the local landscapers and gardeners listed. Ask what they do with plants they remove from jobs. If they give you any indication that they toss those plants, offer to go pick up the garbage-bound plants. You’ll save them the money it would normally cost in disposal fees.

Friends and Family

If you have friends that also garden, then you have a treasure trove of free plants waiting for you. Tell all your friends you’re interested in adding to your garden and you’d be happy to help them divide their perennials, especially if they will share new starts with you.

Strangers

Heck, there’s no reason to stop with friends. Tell perfect strangers that you’re trying to add to your garden. Taking walks in neighborhoods notorious for their great gardens is a great way to do this. If you see someone working in their garden, be quick about telling them how terrific things look. Most gardeners are friendly and just love to talk plants. You’ll also find that most are also quite generous. Don’t be afraid to ask for a slip or start of what they are working on. If they have a mature garden, they are probably on the lookout for ways to get rid of excess plants.

Community Garden Groups

Join volunteer gardening organizations in your community. Native plant societies, city beautification work parties, and invasive plant clean up crews are some that come to mind. All of these activities will be filled with other gardeners. You can get free plants and advice as you work side by side and make new friends.

Volunteer Plants

Keep your eyes open when you’re working in your garden early in the spring for plants making their way up on their own. These plants are called “volunteer plants” or “babies” that are coming up from seed.

The volunteer plants will often be a surprise since you did not specifically plant them. This means they likely won’t appear where you’d expect them to be. The volunteer plants are quite easy to unearth with your hoe as you clean up. Simply save them, mark them or pot them up and move to a safe place to get a bit bigger before planting them in a permanent spot.

Save Seeds

If you already have plants, simply save their seeds to use in future years. It’s an easy, eco-friendly way to get free plants. You can either start by using them to grow new plants indoors to place in the garden or sow them directly into the garden in the spring/summer. Also, be sure to save more than you need for your own garden. This will give you a supply of seeds to trade with others to bring in new plants to your garden for free.

Be Generous With Your Garden

While giving away extras from your own garden doesn’t seem like a way to get free plants, in the world of gardening it’s the way things work. The more generous you are, the more free plants that will end up at your door. I don’t have a detailed explanation of why this works, but it does and you’ll find that the more generous you are with the plants in your garden, the more that will find their way to your own garden.

Get More Bang for Your Buck

While this isn’t a free way to get plants from day one, it is a way to get them in future years. If you do need to purchase some plants, be sure to buy the kinds that will pay dividends. Buy perennial plants that need dividing every 3 – 5 years.

You can also start your own cuttings from woody-stemmed type shrubs. Flowers like dahlias & calla lilies come from tubers that need to be divided regularly, too. Over just a few years, an initial investment in these types of plants will yield a very full garden.

There are also numerous houseplants that you can divide. Some, like the easy-to-care-for spider plant, will even produce babies for you.

If you’ve got other suggestions about ways to procure free plants, I’d love to hear about them — I’ll just have to clear out another flower bed first!

Here’s a quick video on how to divide perennials if you’re not quite sure how to do it:

Is it possible to have a lush flower garden, produce your own veggie patch or just add to the landscaping around your home all for free? Absolutely. One of the easiest ways to do this is to participate in your local chapter of Freecycle. This is a Yahoo list, available at FreeCycle.org. The organization began in 2003 and now boasts close to 3500 chapters, or communities, as they are called and over 2 million subscribers.

The goal of Freecycle is to limit adding to the landfills by recycling usable items. Posts need to be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. Freecycle: a simple solution to get rid of your no longer needed items and a fantastic way to acquire things on your wish list…all for free (minus the gas to go pick the things up!)

Once you have joined the group, please read your communities rules & regs. For example, my local group limits the number of WANTED posts you may list per month, as well as all participants are asked to list at least as many OFFERS as WANTEDS.

As soon as you’re comfortably at home on your local Freecycle list, start posting according to your groups guidelines. Begin small, as you will want to follow through on all posts you receive (in order to be a responsible list member). How about:

WANTED: Strawberry starts/ Lake Stevens

I’ll be happy to take your extra plants
off your hands, now that many of you will
be thinning your strawberry patch. Please
let me know if I can assist with the digging
too, not afraid of hard work here! Thanks
much for freecycling!

Try to time your posts to the gardening tasks currently happening in your area (check our lists here or online for monthly gardening “to do” lists, or your local papers’ gardening column) Local gardeners usually hate to throw out good plants and would much rather share with others.

If you’re really new to gardening and don’t know what you want, you can post something general like:

WANTED: Outdoor plants/ Lake Stevens

I’m new to gardening. Have dirt, shovel
and ready to work. Please let me know
if you have plants, bushes, trees to
share. I would love any help you could
give to get my garden growing!

Be sure to send thank you notes to anyone you get plants from and always offer to take any other excess they may have. Strike up a friendship, tell them your interests regarding plants, offer to help in their garden with larger type chores needing a couple people, ask for advice regarding the plants they did give you and any other gardening questions you may have. Connections like these are the first steps to getting your garden to grow.

So how much did we spend on this so far? A new strawberry patch – Cost: just the gas to go pick up the plants! The same is true with the New Gardener post. You could get your vehicle full of plants for no cost at all. Remember to be flexible, be thankful and grab that shovel and get to work!