Free at Last

Craigslister: Free landscape plants. They are roses and assorted shrubs.  I am hoping to find a person the take them all, 20 or so. The key is, I am seeking someone who will remove the plants carefully as I have the drip system set up and want to reuse it, I just need to change the plants to kid friendly varieties and to make room with smaller plants.

OMFG: Are the landscaping plants still available? If so, I would love to take some and can come tomorrow (Thursday) before 3 pm.  I understand the desire to keep the drip system intact. It's no fun repairing those - been there, done that.

About a dozen emails, two trips, and one yellow jacket nest later, I (along with a few other takers) had cleared this tract home's backyard of nearly all non-grass vegetation order to make way for concrete.

The haul: ten Escallonia shrubs, four French lavender, three white landscape roses, two red landscape roses (since re-homed to a friend's house), two camellias, and one Agapanthus (white, of course).

No need to guess how big these plants were when they were put in the ground a year ago - their rootbound feet and the desperately long roots that stretched from the tops of their rootballs below the layer of mulch surrounding them tell of their year-long plight in their too-small prison cells of hard-packed clay soil. I imagine they're stretching their feet out in the loamy soil of their new home right now...