Hey there. I have been trying to get a landscaper out for nearly 8 weeks but after 10 inquiries, 3 quotes, and 1 guy who booted us off his calendar, I’ve given up and decided to DIY. (In their defense, I live in the Tidewater region of Virginia and it has rained more often than not for the last month!)
Basic story is that we are installing a permanent wheelchair ramp for my husband and needed to pull up part of the sidewalk and remove a few bushes. While we were at it we also wanted to remove the boxwood bushes from around our porch and replace them with something (in our opinion) more attractive. We also wanted the beds to be cleaned out and mulched. We just bought the house last year so we had nothing to do with the existing landscaping and are not emotionally attached to it in any way.
After giving up on hiring a landscaping company, my dad brought down an excavator he had access to and hauled out the sidewalk and the bushes. So now I’m needing to clean out the beds, install new plants of some type, and replace the sidewalk with grass, hopefully.
We are in zone 7b with slightly sandy soil. The house faces south and there is a large awning on the porch.
Plant-wise, we would like something very low maintenance that flowers. Now that we have removed the boxwoods, we really like seeing the brick exposed, so a smaller bush that doesn’t grow into the stratosphere in two weeks would be preferable. We have azaleas on one side of the porch (which we really like) and a climbing rose bush on our chimney that I also need advice on wrangling.
The cost for the guy that we hired (who booted us due to the rain crowding his schedule for what I assume were larger/more lucrative projects) was $850 which included hauling the sidewalk up. I would prefer to stay under $500 for the DIY but have some wiggle room. I have access to discounts up to 50% on nursery products through a family member who works in the industry.
If there are any good guides on cleaning out beds and mulching them, maybe making the lines cleaner where it meets the grass, please let me know where I can find them, and any advice you have on that is also welcome!
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