Gardening Supplies at Dollar Tree

If you enjoy gardening, this is the time of year when you start dreaming of warmer days, drooling over seed packets, and plotting where to grow everything.

You might soon begin keeping an eye on your local garden center to see when they put out the first seedlings of the season, including more cold-hardy flowers such as pansies. You may be waiting for discount retailers such as Aldi to start stocking greenhouses and planters. As you plan your garden for the year, don’t overlook stores such as Dollar Tree. They sell more seeds, planters, and garden accessories than you might expect.

On a recent visit to my local Dollar Tree, I spotted several signs that the gardening season will be here before we know it. What follows are a few of the gardening products I found at Dollar Tree.

Planters

If you’re planning to do container garden of any kind, Dollar Tree sells plastic planters in a variety of colors and shapes, including round, square, and rectangular pots. I also found a few plastic self-watering planters along with some metal planters and some packs of tiny terra cotta-style planters. They’re good for placing on a patio, porch, or windowsill. They’re also useful for growing houseplants in.

Also helpful if you have houseplants: I found several packs of clear plastic saucers in different sizes that can be placed under planters to protect surfaces underneath them, so you don’t have to worry about drainage from a houseplant damaging a table, for instance.

Compostable Pots

Also useful for getting seedlings started, Dollar Tree sells bundled packs of soft, flexible planters that break down after you plant them in a garden or a traditional planter, so you don’t have to disturb fragile seedlings’ root systems when it’s time to move your starts outdoors.

Soil

You’ll need something to fill your planters before adding plants. My local Dollar Tree has 8-pound bags of soil for $1.25. I can’t speak to the quality, but it’s there if you need cheap filler and might be especially helpful when you need to fill very large planters. You can save money by pouring some into the bottom and adding name-brand or more expensive potting soil on the top.

Greenhouses

If you want to get a head start on growing seedlings, Dollar Tree sells simple plastic greenhouses under the American Seed brand (read more below) with a black base and clear top.

Seeds and Bulbs

My Dollar Tree sells a wide variety of seeds, including herbs, flowers, and vegetables. I spotted large boxes — presumably all $1.25 each — of zinnia, marigold, herb, and tomato seeds as well as different types of wildflower mixes, including ones for birds and butterflies, pollinators, sunny areas, and shady areas. I also saw containers of gladiolus bulbs.

In addition, there is a large rack containing traditional seed packets that cost $1 for 4 packets. The packets contain seeds for carrots, peas, green beans, peppers, radishes, beets, broccoli, sage, thyme, cilantro, dill, sunflowers, cosmos, bachelor buttons, daisies, snapdragons, morning glories, petunias, and more.

The seeds are all sold under the brand name American Seed, which is produced by Green Garden Products. They in turn are part of Central Garden & Pet, which produces a variety of brands that include Ferry-Morse seeds, Kaytee pet products, Corry’s slug and snail control, Daconil Fungicide for plants, and more. American Seed is not exclusive to Dollar Tree, and their packets may be found at other dollar stores as well as Walmart or Walgreens.

In my experience, dollar store seeds work as well as pricier seeds from garden or hardware stores. In particular, I’ve recently grown bachelor buttons and radishes from dollar store seed packets.

Jobe Fertilizer Spikes

If you want to give your houseplants a boost, Dollar Tree sells packs of name-brand fertilizer spikes you can pop into a planter.

Small Garden Tools

Dollar Tree has both practical and colorful garden trowels and cultivators in a variety of colors.

Gardening Gloves

An important component of any gardeners supply shelf or shed, garden gloves help keep your hands clean while you play in the dirt. They can also offer a small amount of protection against your hands from getting scratched or cut. Dollar Tree has gardening gloves in several colors and designs for men and women.

Kneelers

My local DT has purple foam kneelers, ideal for giving your knees a break — and keeping them clean — while you’re working in the garden.

Garden Décor

The selection will probably expand as we get closer to growing season, but even while it was still winter, my Dollar Tree had small garden gnomes, metal birds on stakes, and fairy garden decorations such as cottages, cars, camper trailers, and beach houses. I set up outdoor fairy garden areas every year, and most of my decorations come from dollar stores, making it a fairly inexpensive hobby. Dollar store garden decorations also make great prizes for baby or bridal showers or other parties. I contributed some dollar store metal birds and butterflies on stakes as baby shower game prizes for a friend a few years ago, and they were some of the more popular gifts.

Plant Protectors

Okay, so this last one isn’t an official gardening product, but dollar store baskets like the one pictured above can be placed upside down on top of plants to help deter rabbits or other nibbling animals. It’s a cheap, easy hack to protect your tender plants. Because it does not have a solid plastic bottom, it will still allow plenty of sunlight to reach your plants when the basket is upside down over your plants. You may need to secure the basket with garden stakes so it doesn’t blow away or get knocked over by animals.

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What are your favorite gardening supplies from Dollar Tree? Let us know in the comments.