The power of 50% off

We are battling bamboo. Someone planted it, years ago, as a visual barrier between the house that is currently ours and the house immediately next door ("bamboo neighbors"). It works quite well as a barrier - but it has grown intensely and sneaking into our other neighbor's beautiful garden ("garden neighbors"), our basement, sewer lateral and front yard. But, our trio of houses have set a date for battle (i.e. have made an appointment for a backhoe to come dig it all out): August 3.

In preparation, we have decided to buy a dozen or so new shrubs that will eventually grow into a tall hedge to provide that visible barrier. The garden neighbors, who are the ones that arranged for the bamboo to be taken out, were nice enough to let me borrow their truck so that I could drive 30 miles to the wholesale nursery where I could pretend to be garden neighbor's employee and use her contractor's discount and save over $150 on the plants. I found that knowing that the plants were more than half of what I'd have to pay for them retail made me do some impulsive shopping. We are now not only the proud owners of a combination of dodenea and pittosporidium tenufolium (a.k.a. hedge plants), but we also have a dwarf pomegranate and a unnamed whitish bush - which will grow to be 3' and 6' tall respectively. I never thought I'd buy a 6' bush on a whim.