April 20, 2009

Do It Yourself Landscaping (With Injuries to Prove It)

When we got the landscaping estimate two weeks ago from the landscape design lady, we knew there was no way it was going to happen unless a landscaping god dropped plants and trees from the sky, and we did it ourselves.

Then we found where the landscaping gods live. Everyone in our neighborhood has been singing the praises of a nursery located about 25 minutes from our neighborhood. Owned by a mennonite family, they have the best stuff, at a fraction of the price, and they're all super helpful. As a comparison, the plants for the front and one side of our house were going to cost us over $3000, not including labor from the first lady.

From the landscaping gods? We were able to buy all 78 of the plants for around $1000. No, you aren't imagining things; it really does say 78 plants. That could explain why my body feels like it's been through a meat grinder today. The weekend started off with a bang, no, literally a bang.

On Saturday morning, I tried to maneuver around my disorganized laundry room and banged the inside of my ankle on the metal thing sticking out of the inside of the dryer door. It was one of those hitting your funny bone type of moments, but there was nothing funny feeling about it. I scraped some skin off my ankle and it just throbbed for a good five minutes; but there was work to be done, so that's the only time I allowed myself to feel it.

Mr. BBM and I worked for 8.5 hours with barely a break while Lil C ransacked the garage and sometimes sat contentedly on the front porch with her sunglasses on upside down, observing us grumpily. When all was said and done, we had finished the front, and planted two big trees (a birch clump and a weeping blue atlas cedar).

We were exhausted but went to our friends' house for dinner. It was only after washing off the layers of dirt, and arriving at their house, that I realized my ankle was still throbbing. I took a peek at it and noticed it was quite large, as in three times the size of my other one. I spent the rest of the night elevating it and medicating with appletini's.

Sunday I woke up even more sore, despite the fact that I had iced it before going to sleep. I was moving at a snail's pace, but still working because we had no choice. By the close of yesterday, we had planted all but three hosta plants.

My ankle is still swollen and sore. My right knee has a big bruise on it from smacking the shovel against it every time I tried to get some digging leverage. My fingers feel horrible from grasping and shoving dirt around, and my back, we just won't even discuss.

Despite the injuries and the exhaustion, I have to say, that landscaping your entire yard by yourself (me and Mr. BBM) feels pretty good, especially when you can do it for a fraction of the price it would have cost you otherwise.

When it stops raining and we get the mulch down, I'll share some pictures so you can all tell me how fabulous it turned out.