Frugal Landscaping - Part One (ALL)
Recently we decided to landscape our backyard - it is a 100' by 150' lot with six gardens so far. It's going to take a lot of work!
Even if we had the money, it would cost a fortune. But we don't, so we are going to re-make the backyard using recycled materials we get for free or very little cost.
First we bought a 11 ft x 13 ft hexagonal Gazebo - it was on sale at Canadian Tire for $299, marked down from $369. I paid for it with the money I had earned online from Swagbucks, so it was free!
Then, of course, I wanted a patio to go underneath it - but pricing out the cost of patio stone, even with the cheapest materials, it was out of our price range!
So we spent all our Canadian Victoria Day weekend picking up free patio and garden stones from different people thru Freecycle.org - plus we got four bins of free compost thru the city.
We had to borrow my son and his truck to move all this. Thank goodness he was available!
His truck was riding pretty low, but we got them home!
Everyone seemed to be working on their landscaping this weekend, so we did really well!
On the left is a picture of a compilation of four more trips - two trips to pick up the 200 4" x 6" red bricks in my Chevy Tracker - I was worried about the weight, and we did end up with a flat the next day!
Five buckets and bins of pebbles from another person's walkway, 20 one ft x two ft patio stones from another. Gray concrete edging stone from yet another person - about 35 ft. worth.
As we were coming back from picking up the edging stone, we spied even more concrete edging stone on the side of the road, this one in red.
We pulled into their driveway and knocked on their door, asking if the stone was out to the garbage?
Yes, she said, we could have it - so we piled that into my little truck too!
We got enough red edging stone to go into the two gardens on either side of the arbour. My husband has already put it, doesn't it look nice?
Several people also offered us large rocks to make a rock garden, so we have to go back to pick them up.
Now we need more plants - last year we got a great deal at Home Depot - Extreme Couponing at Home Depot - $63.86 in Savings! - I got two rose bushes for $2.00 each (reg. $19.95 each), four Hosta plants for $2.00 each (reg. $8.99 each).Total cost - $12.00!
So with some more great deals like that, and we will keep checking Freecycle for plant giveaways, we should have enough plants for all of our gardens!
Part two coming up - as our Frugal Landscaping adventure continues...
The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 5,041 groups with 8,960,179 members around the world. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Membership is free.
NOTE - If any of the above links are not working or the freebies or coupons no longer available, please post a blog comment below and I'll edit it!
- This was posted by Catherine on May 23, 2012 -
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