How to Get Other People to Haul Away Your Yard Waste

Yard waste containers full?  Want to avoid a time-consuming trip to the yard waste facility?   Here's an option for you that's sure to work.  Simply place said waste on a busy street in front of your home and, using spray paint or a marker write the word FREE on a piece of cardboard.  Place the sign where it can be easily seen from the street and voila you've saved yourself some time and work.  This works beautifully for me when the timber bamboo must be thinned and I have too many poles.  

On a very hot day in August,  while driving home from having lunch with a friend, I saw just such a sign by the side of the road with what must have been an entire large bush's worth of hydrangea branches strewn about.  Who could let these poor things suffer on such a hot day?  Certainly not me, so I filled my trunk.  They were pretty big branches so a bit of cutting was required for them to be ready for vases.  Why oh why didn't I have pruners in my car that day?

There were lovely blue hydrangeas all over the house!

I love flowers but hate to cut them from my garden as they last so much longer outside.  I'm also not fond of cleaning up dead flowers much.  Hydrangeas to the rescue.  The look great fresh but once you forget to water them they dry beautifully and last for a long time!  In fact, here are some of those same August beauties today.

What's been  your favorite free find?