So, my sister's house has a shared front yard. Our neighbors maintain their yard weekly. We on the other hand have mowed twice since moving in last summer. Our lawn mower broke and then the weed whacker soon followed suit. The neighbor kiddo has offered to do it for us, but we dont have the extra to pay him.
So, I am looking for ideas on how to keep the yard naturally shaggy but still not trashy looking. I paint. And we have these big pieces if clear plexi, so I was gonna do some paintings to kinda liven it up. I have planted wild flowers as well....So, I am hoping to have kinda the field of dreams feeling to it.
What else would you add to make it look whimsical? We a BIG shaggy tree in our front yard that provides some great shade. It is one of my favorite things about the yard....We dont have a fence...I am looking into doing one this summer though.
If you are looking to save money, see if you can find a kid to mow the lawn for 25 dollars a month, the landscaping you are talking about costs 100's and is lots of outdoor work.
lol, thank God this is actually about gardening.
you never know
I would look into xeriscaping. Find out what the native plants are to your area. They will require the least water and maintenance. Maybe look on craigslist or free cycle for garden rocks and mulch. Do a rock border, mulch around the trees. Put a clearly defined border between you and the neighbors yard.
i live in a city that will give you a citation if the lawn is over a few inches high. I admire your problem solving and think it sounds cool. But, I think it could get you a ticket if you live in a municipality. And if the neighbor kid offered to mow, his parents may have asked him to make the offer. If the neighbors have a manicured lawn, it may irritate them if you don't. I hate for you to go to all this work and end up regretting it.
if you want a mower, you could always join freecycle.org... i'm sure someone would give you one
Well, in your previous posts you say you are friendly with all your neighbors. How about just borrowing their lawn mower to mow your lawn?
You can take out the lawn and put in native plants. Then check at Habitat Restore for pavers or chunks of concrete from a demo project and create a patio under the big shaggy tree. If you want a play area, you can use bark chips or mulch in place of the grass.
I have a somewhat wild yard with many perenals and japanese maples and such in the front, my yard is something very different in a sea of unmowed lawns and dandelions that my neighbors tend to cultivate. Sunset magazine had a article some time back on minimal mow lawns, the main emphasis being that it is certain grasses that you can use to do it with, not just "lawn" grass.
Honestly before my next door neighbor moved, she threw down a bunch of "meadow" seed because she wanted a natural look with no mowing. What she got was a disaster filled with weeds that blew into my yard. I'm still dealing with the aftermath 4 years later.
Yards take time, care and effort. Even minimal care yards still require upkeep such as weeding and pruning back. Mowing the yard is probably the most minimal upkeep to do and your neighbors would probably happily loan a mower
I'm a huge fan of pernenial gardens. Yes, initialy it may cost a little, but there's little maintenance. Look for plants that are on clearance and past their prime. They won't look to good this year, but will come back again next year and look beautiful. You can space them far apart as over the years they will spread. If you choose, you can add a few wood chips. Instead of using the expensive black stuff to prevent weeds, use newspaper. My pernenial garden is surrounded by rocks and shells I collected on the beach. You can add lots of items to make it look whimsical. My girlfriend painted some old bowling balls to look like lady bugs. I used an old turtle sand box as a planter.
You can make a rock garden. Paint a few of the rocks.
We definitely don't have a super maintained yard (probably the worst of all of our neighbors), we don't care about the moss or dandelions in our lawn and we don't water, but we do keep it mowed!
If you want to keep the lawn, you need to get a mower and mow it. "Natural" aka un-mowed lawns just looks trashy, and as soon as it gets drier (if summer ever arrives this year) it will look even worse. An unmaintained yard lowers the property value of the entire block, so I am sure your neighbors would appreciate if you could keep yours a little at least minimally groomed.
If you want to do away with the mowing, you need to get rid of the lawn. Plant some native shrubs and flowers (you may have to wait for a season) and mulch the ground to keep a handle on the weeds. Even with mulch though, there will be some weeding required... I'd rather mow every few weeks, since I HATE weeding.
