Cut back Garden budget by using No-fuss seeds

One way to rein in your plant purchases this spring without putting a damper on your dream garden is to use annuals — especially those you can start from seeds sown directly into the garden. For 15 to 25 bucks — the price of one or two flats of flowers or hanging baskets — you can buy a fistful of seed packets that will produce hundreds of plants in a rainbow of colors and shapes.

Some annuals, such as morning glories, hyacinth bean, cardinal climber and moonflower, climb by leaps and bounds. Sunflowers, in shades of red, cherry, gold or white, turn their "faces" throughout the day to follow the sun. Some annuals are fragrant, like the night-scented tobacco flower, and others can add zing to a flower arrangement.

Unlike perennials, which typically return every spring, but usually flower for just a few weeks, annuals tend to bloom their little heads off from late spring right up until frost. When they finish flowering, they produce seeds and then head for that garden in the sky. You can collect the seed for freebie flowers next year and rearrange where you use them for a new look.

By sowing annuals from seeds, "your world opens to plants you never knew existed," says garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet, Ill. "My advice to newbies and other gardeners is to just try it." Each spring, she sows seeds of Chinese forget-me-not (Cynoglossum), which offers shades of blue and pink and will bloom in full sun to light shade. "It's a must for those tiny little flower arrangements."

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