How to build a super frugal Backyard and Garden

 

You know I’m all about DIY. This time I would like to share with you our favorite garden ideas on a budget.

Most of these projects were made after hurricane Maria, and we used a lot of materials we found when cleaning debris on our streets.

Luckily we took a lot of pictures about our garden decoration in progress so you can enjoy them and create yours this Spring.

No matter if your backyard and garden are small or too big you’ll find super cool and cute ideas.

I would say most of these were reasonably easy DIY garden projects and can be done in a few hours or over the weekend.

Let’s not underestimate debris and junk and let’s create garden decorations on a DIME!

1. Mosaic house number signs

This mosaic house numbers DIY was so much FUN! Probably I was looking in the wrong places like Home Depot and other department stores and the end of the day I was disappointed and left without any house signs.

So I thought let’s get creative and make one from rocks and sea glass we collected on our beach walks. Oh, it turned out exactly I imagined!

So much better than those boring numbers you can buy. Aaaaand you guessed it right the whole mosaic house number DIY was FREE! All from repurposed materials.

1. The base of our mosaic house number plaque is a white plastic board which is a leftover from my office makeover project.

2. The frame is a rustic stacked stone tile from Home Depot. Also left over from my master bathroom DIY project.

3. The little turtles are beads I was going to use to make a bracelet, but I found it super cute to include them in my mosaic house numbers designs.

I used waterproof silicone sealant because it rains a lot in Puerto Rico, especially where we live.

If you don’t have a clear idea about what you want, you can always search for mosaic house number ideas on Pinterest. 😉

 

2. Exterior wood hurricane shutters

We bought our house without shutters. No good since we live in Puerto Rico right by the sea.

Buying shutters for the whole house were out of our budget, and we like to DIY, so we decided to make our own Farmhouse DIY shutters. If you are lucky and live in a place without hurricanes, you still can decorate your windows with these cute farmhouse shutters.

If you are up to the challenge just make sure you leave no place for the sneaky wind. Make sure your hurricane shutters close correctly and will take the strong winds for hours.

 

3. DIY driftwood patio lounge chair

Well, our Frankenstein patio lounge chair was born after hurricane Maria. There were ripped out trees everywhere, and we kept few of those pieces after we cleaned up.

We found some flat driftwoods on the beach, and those became the sitting area of the chair.

The metal base is a curb find, and we guess it was an old chair in its better days. Perfect for our driftwood Adirondack wannabe chair.

Spray painted the metal and put a protective wood finish on the wood. Hoping it will survive the weather for long. So far so good it’s holding up nicely.

I know it’s not the best looking guy but believe me, it is comfortable. Plus two adults and two dogs can fit on it. 🙂

 

4. Repurpose an old washing machine drum as a planter

Turn that washing machine drum into a chic industrial planter if you have one from metal.

We found a plastic one. I never thought to save the drum after replacing our washer, but when we saw an old washing machine while walking with the dogs, we figured the drum is perfect for replanting one of our palm trees.

Cleaned it well, sand it a little bit and spray painted it. The drum already has holes on it, which will help not to flood your plant.

 

5. Make an above ground turtle pond

I found a little turtle in the pool. Poor guy, I don’t know how long he would survive in the pool full of chemicals so of course we saved him and took him home.

We bought this blue plastic pool for $10 and made him a nice turtle pond repurposing whatever plant we already had at home.

Hid the pool with some rocks we picked up on our street.

 

6. Rock garden with driftwood for the front yard

Completely free DIY rock garden project. It is all repurposed materials we found after hurricane Maria.

1.Rocks in every size shape and color from the mudslides.

2. Bromeliads, orchids from everywhere on our street. They were all over the places, and after cleaning all the debris, we kept the ones survived the storm.

3. Driftwood. We collected them on our beach walks close to the river bed.

4. Blue Planters. We found them in bad shape and gave them new life with a little sanding and spray painting.

7. bamboo garden bed

We always find bamboo on our walks, on the beach next to a river bed or around our urbanization. It’s sturdy, available, comes in a variety of sizes, and it’s free. 

This time we decided to use the old sturdy ones to build a new garden bed.

The salad greens, like our favorite, the arugula got its new shady bamboo garden bed at the best corner of our patio.  

You can use the bamboos as a building material for almost all of your garden projects. They will survive practically forever. 

 

If you want to live frugal DIY as much as possible. Think outside of the box and look around the house what materials you can repurpose.

I know sometimes it is very tempting to go to the department store and buy the newest outdoor and patio decoration but you can create your own beautiful garden bed, repurposed planters and rock garden on a dime if you DIY on the weekends.

For more frugal DIY outdoor and backyard projects check out my related articles.

Backyard DIY ideas: https://hungaricanjourney.com/backyard-patio-ideas-on-a-budget/

Backyard games: https://hungaricanjourney.com/backyard-activities-patio-game-ideas/

Boho mini planters: https://hungaricanjourney.com/diy-boho-petterned-pot/

Blue plastic pot tutorial: https://hungaricanjourney.com/blue-pot/

I’m always on a lookout for DIY ideas. Please leave your favorite outdoor DIY project in the comments.

Spring is here, summer will be here in any second! So don’t forget to pin it and you can start your outdoor DIY projects.