We have less than no money for buying plants, yet are still trying to get a privacy hedge going strong for some covert chicken action someday, so what's a girl to do? I went shopping in my own yard! I was lucky in that the kids were back to school on Monday, but hubby had an extra day off for Easter, so we were able to get some real work done.
Two years ago, I was lucky enough to find someone else willing to give me about a dozen Rose of Sharon twigs. They can be invasive and were coming up all over her property, so she dug a bunch of "sticks" up and gave them to me, as invasive sounded pretty good to me at the time. We couldn't afford to replace our hurricane damaged fence with more wood panels so we had opted for wire fencing, but had the problem of privacy. I placed these "sticks" in the ground and within 2 years, I had bushes that were over 5 feet tall after pruning them. Normally I'm not a fan of Rose of Sharon, but free is free, and they are doing the trick! Last summer I planted Manhattan Euonymous between them, and by the end of summer they too were tall and bushy. Now look at the photo below, see the Rose of Sharon "trees"? They obviously were quickly becoming unnecessary when combined with the fast growing euonymous.
Enter hubby and his mad digging skillz! He proceeded to dig up 4 of them for me and put them on the other side of the yard that still has no hedging, and other than a hungry husband to cook for, they were free!
Below is with the Rose of Sharon shrubs removed, can barely even tell where they were! This is going to be a long process filling it all in on the cheap, but we are about halfway there, since the back of the yard portion of the fence is becoming full with naturally occurring Virginia Creeper, invasive here, but beautiful and wild!
He didn't stop there. I told him that our hammock situation needed help. We hadn't even had the chance to enjoy it but already couldn't use it since the temps went from highs in the 50's to highs of 90 within a week or so, it's too hot to be pleasant without any shade.
Some of you may remember that the kids had one of those ugly blue above ground pools a couple of years ago, and in an effort to make it nicer to look at, I surrounded it with a thatch "skirt" and old landscape timbers and gravel robbed from the kids' playset.
I know you are laughing now... yes I hate those pools that much!
Well, when the pool went away, I rolled up and kept the thatch, knowing there would be a day when we would need it again. Hubby took the roll and constructed a little thatch roof for the hammock, and the area was instantly cooled down and lovely for relaxing! It may be a little redneck, but that's kind of what I like about it at the same time :)
Here's what I see from under it, I get to look at my garden plus smell the huge rosemary shrub that's next to the hammock.
The dogs approved, too! Black fur and sunshine don't mix well :)
After all that work, I allowed him to kick back and relax for a bit!
Big points for hubby this week so far!
