SINCE moving into my new home in March I’ve become obsessed with improving my shoddy garden.
But as any green fingered wannabee knows it’s expensive business with a lot of trial and error.
I’ve easily blown several hundred in garden centres around my area this summer.
Where I can, I try to get the basic stuff from supermarkets , like small potting plants.
But when it came to fancy lighting gadgets I decided to leave that to the posh garden centres – I don’t want any cheap-looking tacky lights in my new space.
I had managed to get some lovely, standard solar lights on stakes from Asda earlier in the season.
This time, I wanted something to hang from the tree that comes over the fence.
So, I ventured to the pricey garden centre down the road and found the perfect set.
Two rustic bronze hanging lights, one with a sloth hanging onto the rope and another with a money.
They were £15 each which is a bit steep but well worth it for a bit of character.
But then, to my shock just days later I was shopping in Aldi and found the same products available at a much cheaper price.
These weren’t any dupes either, they appear to be exactly the same.
In fact, Aldi’s were slightly better as they were boxed as opposed to my garden centre that had the pair out and exposed on the shelf at risk of scratches.
Aldi’s price was £10, so a third less – and as I bought two, this means I could have saved £10 too.
So, the lesson I’ve learnt is that it really does pay off to shop around.
And crucially, not to assume that discount supermarkets won’t stock fancier bits.
I’ve since given Lidl a go too, and got hold of a bunch of plants much cheaper than I’d seen in garden centres.
From now on, when it comes to my gardening needs, I’ll be thinking of the supermarket first and foremost.
FREE GADGETS TO IMPROVE YOUR GARDEN
By Jamie Harris , Assistant Technology and Science Editor at The Sun
Since getting stuck into my garden I’ve found a super handy way to support my plants growth.
Google Gemini AI can take a peak at just about anything and give you some sound advice.
Firstly, the free app will take a look at anything you show to it and instantly identify what it is.
Then you can ask any follow up questions with your voice, such how to care for it, how often it needs to be watered or more.
The voice assistant will chat back to you in a more natural, human-like way than some of the digital helpers we’ve seen before.
I’ve also used it to help me with food shopping recently to slash how much I spent .
