With winter looming over us, it's easy to find yourself hibernating inside away from the rest of the world. But if you're in the mood for a pick-me-up, starting to plan out your garden for the spring season is always a good idea. Not many things are as satisfying as watching the seeds you planted bloom after winter's frost has been replaced by sunshine. But if this makes you overwhelmed about having to purchase a bunch of new garden supplies, we have a money-saving hack for you. Read on to see how you can save big in Home Depot's garden section.
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Home Depot has an easy hack that will get you a half-off discount.
Soil and mulch are essential supplies when setting up or maintaining your home garden—and now you may be able to get them, and any other bagged garden goods like rocks, fertilizer, and grass seed, for half off at Home Depot.
The next time you're shopping in their garden center, TikToker user @yourrichbff says to look for bags that have holes or slight tears in them. If the packaging is a bit ripped it will not affect what is inside, but it might just get you a discount.
"Any bag that is torn open or cut in the Home Depot Garden center is considered a cull bag," she explains in her video. "If you take that bag to the register and try to check out and ask the Home Depot cashier to mark down the cull bag, they will take 50 percent off the purchase price. And if the bag is less than full, they might mark it down even more."
She includes a caption that says although you can usually expect half off, the discount may vary depending on the size and severity of hole. In response, some commenters have pointed out a few holes in her hack. "This is only partially true. A cashier doesn't have the ability to do half off. The department head does," wrote @Gordie. While another user @Klo wrote, "We don't do this, the most we take off is 10 percent."
Even if this hack doesn't score you 50 percent off every time, we'll take any discount we can get, right?
Home Depot will let you return dead plants.
Unfortunately, not all plant lovers have a green thumb. If you're someone whose plants tend to take a turn for the worse soon after you bring them home, we have another Home Depot tip for you. Thanks to their generous return policy, if one of your plant purchases bites the dust you can swap it for a new one that will, fingers crossed, survive at least a little longer. Remember: They need water.
If you bought a perennial, tree, tropical plant, or shrub for your garden, you can return it (no matter how dusty and dead it is) within 365 days of your purchase if you have the receipt, reports Apartment Therapy. Yes, you read that right: You can trade your dried up orange tree for a fresh one with no added fee (or judgement).
It's important to note that you'll only get a refund if you’re within 90s days but an exchange or store credit from the three month to the year mark. As for house plants, flower bushes, and succulents purchased in-store or online, you have 90 days to return or exchange them for your second-chance plant.
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Lowe's offers a similar discount.
Lowe's also has a policy in place which allows you to save money on garden supplies using the handy dandy ripped bag trick.
There isn't a specific discount guaranteed but in a reddit thread dedicated to all things Lowe's, a former employee under the username of Auburndude6 says if you ask you shall receive. "On open bag goods (in lawn and garden and lumber departments), the department managers will negotiate on the price to get rid of them (I’ve paid only 1$ a piece for bags of play sand and concrete)," they wrote. "But you must talk to the department manager or ASM (assistant manager)."
On another reddit thread, user Schmidty102 boasted that he got two damaged bags of Milorganite half off at his local Lowe's. "Just a friendly reminder that Lowe’s marks down damaged bags 50 percent off," they wrote. "I stopped on my way home for lunch today and they only had two bags of Milorganite left that were both ripped open. I bagged them myself with their plastic bags, but sometimes they already have them bagged up."
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This hack works with wood too.
If your spring garden plan involves building new beds, you're in luck as well. Just like the "cull bags" in the garden section, there is also an opportunity to get "cull lumber" at a discounted price.
While the bags have holes or tears in the packaging that doesn't necessarily affect the product, the cull lumber is wood that has been removed from regular inventory due to actually being damaged or scraped. While this lumber (which can usually be found in a cull lumber section in the back of the store) can be somewhat flawed, the up to 70 percent off price tags are hard to beat.
"Most stores cull out their lumber into 2 piles of white wood and pressure treated at 10 cents on the dollar," wrote Auburndude6. "You have to take the whole pile but it's worth it. I bought a pile of 4x4’s and cut them up for a raised garden."
Now can it just be spring already?
