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.

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Posted by on April 20, 2009 in Building the BBM House | 11 Comments

Comments

11 Comments on Do It Yourself Landscaping (With Injuries to Prove It)

  1. Avitable on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 8:46 am

    2. Very cool – look forward to seeing what it looks like!

  2. Miss Chris on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 12:40 pm

    3. i love that you self medicated with an appletini! May as well get some enjoyment out of the deal 🙂

  3. Davesan on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 2:05 pm

    4. Can you do anything without hurting yourself? Or are these just subconscience cries for help and appletinis.

  4. Black Belt Mama on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 2:59 pm

    5. The latter. . . yes.
    BBM

  5. Bush Mackel on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 6:58 pm

    6. Can’t wait to see the pictures but I’m just trying to figure out why every time I drop by your blog, you’ve got a new injury of some sort!

  6. Black Belt Mama on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 7:59 pm

    7. Tell me about it! I think I hit a blood vessel or something/maybe a nerve too. It’s really weird. It’s like someone stuck a water balloon in my ankle. It is a little better tonight. I’m skipping karate and taking it easy.
    BBM

  7. Bush Mackel on Mon, 20th Apr 2009 11:08 pm

    8. Makes you feel any better, I’ve yet to do ANY gardening which I’ve been telling myself that I was going to do AND when playing basketball yesterday I think I bruised my thigh and tomorrow at 11am I have another Physical Therapy appt for my feet/knees. (#):)

  8. Black Belt Mama on Tue, 21st Apr 2009 7:49 pm

    9. Oh man, now you sound like me!
    BBM

  9. delmer on Thu, 23rd Apr 2009 8:45 pm

    10. >>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. << You'd probably have to pay to feed her Secret Service guys too.

  10. used digger derrick trucks on Sun, 3rd May 2009 1:59 am

    11. Nice posting, I like it. When it comes to landscaping and labor intensive work I always bring out the bad boy toys. After destroying two back ends in my truck I finally decided to purchase some heavy duty equipment to help me on my way. I have found my dump truck and bucket truck to be very helpful with trimming tall trees and removing the debris from my yard.

  11. Dorthy on Fri, 18th Oct 2013 5:12 am

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