Plant a hedge or shrub border

A row of shrubs along a fence or property line. Scales to the length you want to cover.

How long is the row?

feet

This fits in a car

About 494 lb of materials. Comfortably inside what a car carries (200 lb), so any shopper can take it.

Before you start

Call 811 before digging along a property line — that is exactly where buried utility lines tend to run. It is free and takes a couple of days.

What to buy — untick anything you have

Plants

7 Shrub, 3 gallon potAll the same variety. Ask the garden center for something that stays the size the customer wants — a hedge that wants to be 15 ft tall will be.

Soil

Lawn

Tools — already ticked off, since most people have them

Tools

It lands in the shopping form, where you can edit anything and say what you think each thing costs. Nothing is ordered until you send it.

How it goes · about a day · beginner

Run a string line where the row goes and mark a spot every 3 ft along it.
Dig each hole twice as wide as the pot and no deeper than the root ball.
Loosen the roots if they circle the pot, set each shrub level with the ground, and backfill with native soil mixed half and half with the bagged soil.
Sprinkle the starter fertilizer around each one as the bag directs.
Mulch the strip three inches deep, keeping it off the stems, and water each shrub slowly until the hole is soaked.
Water twice a week through the first summer. Arkansas heat is what kills new shrubs, not cold.

Something else

Feeding people instead? The recipe book works the same way — pick a meal, say how many, every ingredient lands on the list.