It’s been one month since I moved into this house. And let me tell you, this place needed some serious love. One area that I wanted to fix was the flower box in the front yard. No, I don’t really have any experience gardening or doing yard work. But when have I ever let inexperience stop me?
Ok, it wasn’t really a flower box at all. Mostly just a mess of dirt and old bricks and a dead tree of some sort. Either way, it looked pretty depressing.
With all the moving expenses I’ve incurred the past month, I didn’t have much money to spend. Also, I’m renting this place. I don’t want to spend a ton of money fixing up the property 
The first thing I did was price garden stones. WalMart had some plain ones for 99 cents, but pretty much everything else I found was at least $1.50 a stone. So I checked the free section of Craigslist to see if anyone was giving them away. (You never know.)
What I found was a listing for free brick! So I drove a few miles to a nice little house that had a stack of brick in the driveway, and I loaded up the bed of my truck. (For the record, I am so not cut out for hard labor. Hauling bricks is hard work! Especially in 100+ degree weather.)
Now that I had that taken care of, I had to decide if I wanted to actually plant things in the ground or use planters. As I said, I’m renting, so I decide planters would be best. I can take them with me when I leave! (Which won’t be for some time, I promise.)
I went to Ross and found three cream colored planters that I loved. The small one was $3.00, the middle one was $5.99, and the large one was $6.99. I had another planter I already purchased from the Dollar Tree, too. I also picked up a bag of brown mulch from Wal-Mart for less than $4, and 4 solar LED lights for $1 each. And I found a little perennial to go in one of the planters for $3.
On Sunday night, I got to work. Thanks to my mom, I had a nice little garden tool kit I dug up all the old bricks, pulled the dead tree out of the ground, and dug holes for each new brick. I had a really hard time towards the end. The roots from the larger tree in the yard ran right under the flower box, so the bricks aren’t entirely straight. And I started losing light, so the last bricks are just laid on their side for now.
I’ll need to play around with the lights – that crooked one is trying to avoid a tree root right now. And I need to find some more plants to go in those planters. And you know, finish this side properly. Oh, and fix the giant hole in the front yard where the previous tenants had someone (not the city) dig.
But it’s a start!
So, let’s tally up the cost:
- Bricks: Free
- Planters: $18
- Mulch: $4
- Lights: $4
- Plant: $3
- Potting Soil: $1
Right at $30. Ok, it will cost a little more once I buy the rest of the plants. But even just leaving the planters empty, it already looks so much better. I even had a neighbor come over and talk to me after I finished the project. Yes, he came over specifically due to this project – he even mentioned it!
So even though the bricks aren’t in a straight line and the yard still needs so much more work, I’m still happy with the result. Especially since it was within my budget!
