Be Green: reduce, REUSE, and recycle
Save Green: like, free
Get Green: no more pesky bald patches in your landscape

Intrigued? Read on.

The first time we saw our little abode, we loved her straight away, even if her paint colors were looking a little dated.

My hubby was chomping at the bit to get started on that landscape tout suite but we were practically broke. The previous owner had been an avid gardener before she just got too old to take care of the yard anymore. So there was some beauty lurking around but it needed some serious TLC. Case in point: shrubbery abounds on the right side of the front porch, nada on the left. Weird, right?

We really wanted some boxwoods to match what was on the right so we put up a wanted ad on CraigsList. We knew this was a bit of a long-shot. Boxwoods are coveted in Southern gardens and we’d heard many a tale of vacations and cars being financed by selling big, old boxwoods right out of the yard to newer homes seeking that “always been there” look. But we tried anyway and would you believe that on the very first day our post was live we got a bite!? The voice on the other side of the phone said:

“We just pulled 6 boxwoods out of a yard up here today. I was just about to haul them to the dump in the morning. If you want them, come on out and pick them up.”

Visualize Will and Julia doing a happy dance.

Except that when my husband drove out to timbuktoo, TN, they weren’t boxwoods at all. They were hemlocks. So our original boxwoods to the right of the porch got moved elsewhere and we become the proud parents of 6 new hemlocks.

Now just about the only thing I can think of that hemlock has made a bigger impression on is Socrates. But while hemlock killed Socrates dead, it totally brought our yard to life:

(Please ignore the petrified ornamental cabbage in the windowboxes. Yes, those are the same cabbages that I planted in December in my very first post and there’s a windowbox post coming soon, I promise.)

Now here’s the real kicker about these hemlocks. My hubbs went down to the garden center to find out what fertilizers and such would make these puppies thrive. And would you believe that the nursery told him that he would sell hemlocks that large for $400 apiece!!!  We have 6!  That’s $2400 in landscaping for nuthin’ except the cost of gas to get to timbuktoo and pick them up. Not to shabby.

So …

Be Green: reduce, REUSE, and recycle
Save Green: like, free
Get Green: no more pesky bald patches in your landscape

And although I am sure I’m not the first to come up with the idea to source landscaping on Craig’s List, I devised this plan sans rip off or inspiration file. So let’s call this one a Julia Original. Why not give it a whirl! What do you have to lose?