Adventures in Landscaping

My husband and I now have weird-looking sunburns, mulch-stained hands, and aching bodies.  We spent NINE HOURS doing a little landscaping in the yard yesterday (hence my absence here).  Here's what it looked like when we were done:

I forgot to take "before" pictures since we started this project a few weeks ago, but just trust me when I say it looked awful!  Hubby and I do NOT have green thumbs by any means, but we decided this was the year to clean our yard up a bit and see what we could do on our own.  We've been watching all kinds of shows on DIY Network, we've been to the garden and home improvement stores plenty of times, and figured it was time to dig in!

Being the frugal person I am, I went about this project in the most economical way possible.  I'm always on the lookout for deals and coupons, so when I got a coupon sheet from a store called Houston Garden Center, that's the place I went to get started.  The plants there are gorgeous; they have every palm tree you can think of, bedding plants, grass, planters - you name it - they have it!  The only problem: they're EXPENSIVE!  I don't mean ridiculously overpriced compared to other stores, I mean expensive to ME since I have no idea how much gardening supplies are supposed to cost.  We've done minimal things to our yard in the last 4 years so I know a bag of mulch costs about 4 dollars, and colorful annuals are about 3 dollars per 6pk.  Big plants - I have no idea!  Since I'm used to getting so much for free, paying for plants is definitely a culture shock.

Anyhow, I decided to shop around (of course!).  We found that Ross carries a nice selection of large to small ceramic planters.  This large planter here only cost $18.99, as compared to about $60.00 at Houston Garden Center and Lowes. 

I only spent $1.15 on the plants to put in it, so I did the whole planter for only $20.00!

My husband had to work on Saturday so the boys and I went to Lowe's to grab the second set of bricks for our retaining wall (the first set was laid weeks ago), and I stumbled across these large red plants:

I had been looking for something big enough to go along the back, so these worked perfectly!  They had a sign on them for $4.98, so I grabbed 5 and hurried to the checkout.  While in line, an employee put about 6 trays of colorful 6pks on a cart and said they were $.15 EACH!  I grabbed two trays of 6pks and I was on my way.  The plants I had fallen in love with turned out to be mis-marked - they were supposed to be $19.98!  The nice lady at Lowe's honored the price PLUS they accepted my $10.00 off coupon from Houston Garden Center, so after the coupons, clearance sale, and price adjustment, I only ended up spending $27.00 in TOTAL on plants for my yard!  Amazing!

We needed top soil and mulch and were getting in the car to head to Lowe's when we noticed our neighbor P.J. had a truckload of mulch.  When we asked how much he spent, he said he paid $34.00 per CUBIC YARD of mulch - he had literally filled the back of his pickup truck for $68.00.  We were thrilled because we had intended on paying $4 per bag of mulch and $1 per bag of soil.  He very generously offered to let us use his truck, so we headed off to get the dirt and mulch for our yard.  We spent $65 on a TRUCKLOAD of premium soil and black mulch.  WOW!

We were sooo excited to finish this project early - my husband is a 100% commissioned employee and times are very tough right now due to tax time being around the corner.  We had planned on spending maybe $50 a week for a month or so, and then we'd re- evaluate and see where the yard was at that time.  I spent a little more this week than I had intended, but the project is now DONE, and the fertilizer is down and the planters look great.  All in all, our whole yard makeover cost a little over $200:

Top soil and mulch - $65 (we had a bunch leftover so we gave it to a neighbor)

Retaining wall (2 layers) - $100

Plants - $27

Planter - $20

Total: $212.00!!!

Another project - done, and on CLEARANCE!  :o)