Decorating & Renovating
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
This fascinates me
Our next door neighbors lawn is 50% grass 50% flat weeds. Think shamrocks, that sorta thing. And dead shrubs and flowers. We moved in in november and noticed a bike dumped by the fence between our yards.
They have a lawn service now their lawn. I placed a bet w DH if the lawn service would move the bike or prop it up. Nope. They mowed around it.
I find it hilarious they have this service come regularly. Why not pick up the bike or hire out some weed control and landscaping. The owners are both able bodied and I assume just busy. The weed *ahem lawn* mowing seems like an odd luxury when you don't care how it looks.
It will be interesting to see how long this bike stays there.
***Nestie Bestie w/ TheDeatons***
Re: This fascinates me
Our next door neighbors have lawn/weed mowing service. Their yard looks terrible, both front and back.
Mine too. I assume because having a service cut the grass to keep it from violating town ordinances, but doing nothing else, is the path of absolute minimal effort.
***Nestie Bestie w/ TheDeatons***
That's really weird! I get so embarrassed if DH lets the grass get a bit out of control...I should probably do it myself! LOL
How much more could it really cost to have the lawn care company do a weed and feed and get some actual grass going?!?!
At least he has grass to mow! I'm glad their house doesn't face the same street as ours or it would probably bother the sh!t out of me rather than amuse me.
***Nestie Bestie w/ TheDeatons***
I think 95% of the lawn services here are non english speaking people who don't know anything about gardening...they just know how to mow lawns and pretend to prune shrubbery.
The only people in our neighborhood with decent lawns are people who take care of it themselves.
Ha ha. Me, too. We did have crazy, crazy weeds in our front yard after coming back from vacation (like some probably almost to my knees), so we had a service come out to deal with the weeds. We cut and water the grass regularly, but we have quite a few weeds and the bushes out front look horrible. We just have so many projects going on that we don't pay attention to the outside. Eventually we will.
ETA that our lawn isn't 50% weeds. However, at times it's probably 20% weeds.
It doesn't matter how obsessive I get about eliminating weeds in my yard. The neighbors don't, so the dandelions all blow into my yard and spread!
But the good news is H mows it just about every weekend or every other weekend while it's growing and he's out there putting seed down to patch up the spots that died during the 100+ degree months of July and August of last year.
Also, my yard looks super nice now because of the landscaping (that's half finished -- c'mon bulbs, grow!) and the neighbors looks even worse now lol.
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I care more about the environment than my lawn. Those flowers support a lot of insects, and those sprays are really awful poisons.
We don't use poisons, and we don't use much water either. We have mostly flowering shrubs and a very small patch of lawn that we would like to replace, and a veggie garden, but we aren't staying here and aren't sure that someone else would share our view.
We do try to keep our yard looking nice from street because we care about keeping the neighborhood from looking like trash.
I'm sorry but what exactly does language have to do with gardening ability? I don't want start anything, but I'm not cool with this type of thing being thrown around.
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I don't think she meant anything bad by this at all. I think where she was headed was because they are not native to the area and their English may not be the best they don't always understand things like weather patterns, what grows best where etc. Nor do they have the knowledge of chemicals and weed control. They either didn't have it back home, or don't understand what works and doesn't here. Or they just don't have the vocabulary to explain it English yet. There may also be a communcation issue with the homeowner about what needs to be done etc. This is why most just mow the lawn and move on. It's easy to explain and not screw up.
I don't think BridesMom was being racist or discriminatory at all...more telling it like it is/why they do what they do.
I know where BMom is coming from. Our Ukrainian Exchange student (who is super intelligent) has no concept of lawn care/picking up yard junk etc. When he first arrived he thought it was the weirdest thing. His English is also superb but he didn't have the vocabulary for things like "weed eater" "Roundup" "pull weeds" "lawn mower "cut grass." He always talks about how it's just not done in his country. It's fence and either dirt yard with flowers or weeds. He said in newer houses people figure out how to build so they have as little lawn as possible. He also talks about how the Ukraine is a beautiful place but people use their yard space/groves/windreaks for junk. So the first time I made him help me with yard work he was completely confused and had no idea what to do. H and I also cleaned a bunch of stuff from about 8 generations past out of our grove last fall and he had no understanding of why we just couldn't leave it/what was wrong with it there/what happens at the scrap metal facility. It wasn't racist/discriminatory or whatever...it was just a fact of life. Needless to say, if I have him do yardwork now I don't tell him more than, "Cut the grass please." In depth yardwork is a hard thing to explain. I had an easier time teaching him the inner workings of the farm....but again...that was something he had the vocabulary for.
All of that said, our yard looks great (little junk, always mowed) but if it wasn't for crab grass and clover, I wouldn't have much of a lawn.
When you have 3 acres of lawn, it's hard to have perfect grass and I'm not about to water it either.
I don't think it's that strange. There are lawn mowing companies which are essentially day laborers with no gardening knowledge, just how to work the equipment and there are real horticulture companies who actually know what they are doing. There are a few inbetween like TruGreen who know their chemicals, but don't have a complete picture. If you just don't have time to mow your lawn and want to keep it legal for the cheapest price possible, you call company #1.
Dairy, when we had a massive lawn, we pretty much only watered to make sure we weren't creating a fire hazard around our house during the summer. One sprinkler width band around the house.
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It costs a whole lot more to have a full spray service done by a licensed company regularly to keep the weeds under control than it does to have someone come mow the lawn.
It's upwards of $1,000 a season locally to have a lawn sprayed for crab grass and broadleaf weeds along with grub control, not to mention adding on landscaping.
You can hire anyone to mow your lawn for pretty cheap money.
Thanks Dairy, and sorry Bunny...I left out part of what meant to say, that I think would have made more sense and hopefully not offended anyone.
Dairy was right...there are huge communication issues. People still use them because it is cheap and convenient...even if they don't get the work done the way that want. You don't have to have a lot of knowledge/experience for people to hire you...you just have to find people who don't want to do the work and they will pay.
Starting up a lawn care business is a relatively easy business to start up, and is better than the alternative for the many immigrants that we have here, which is working in the agricultural fields. You control your hours, and even though it is hard work and not great pay, it is an option to being a migrant farm worker.
There are also lawn care businesses that are owned by people who ware bilingual, but around here most of the laborers they use aren't, and because of different dialects, and the boss not actually being on the job, there are still communication issues.
It's on their side of the fence. I don't feel comfortable walking around and going into their backyard. It's not like a shared side yard or anything like that.
***Nestie Bestie w/ TheDeatons***
This. Plus I don't get why grass is great, but clover or small purple flower "weeds" aren't?
I have an irrational hatred of lawns and do not get why people are obessessed with them. Lawns made sense when people had animals to graze in them. Now they seems pointless, except for maybe a small patch for kids (or adults) to play on. I swear the people in my neighborhood with the nicest lawns are also the people who never step a foot on their grass. What's the point?
I don't think that grass is better than other landscaping, but if you are going to have it, then it should look better than our neighbor's does. If our neighbor had nice ground cover of any sort, including non plant, I wouldn't think anything of it, but it is half dead grass, crabgrass, weeds with stickers that get in our yard and I don't even know what else. It looks trashy.
BridesMom - Glad you didn't mean anything, but your "pretending to prune" came off harsh. Like everyone is saying, you get what you pay for. Cheaper companies don't pay a living wage. Seems like a call to the company owner would clear up any communication issues. Plus, members of any type of crew shouldn't take instruction directly from the owner because they don't know the agreement.
Lawns and gardens are TONS of work and I understand why some people don't care. Its not like you can just dust and vacuum or close the door and do no maintenance. It can be overwhelming.
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I guess you would have to see the pruning work around here to understand where I was coming from with that. It is either sad, or comical, and sometimes both. Even the most skilled of these workers just aren't given enough time to do the job properly, so it doesn't usually look good and it usually isn't the proper pruning for the particular tree/shrub.
My former neighbor had a lawn service with an owner who was bilingual, as was the neighbor, but after going over which plants to leave in and which to remove, the business owner tagging them and instructing the workers and the neighbor going over it with them that day before he left for work (per the business owner's instructions), they still chopped down the wrong shrubs. And they wouldn't listen to him about not cutting our ornamental plants that spilled over the side of the flower bed at the border of our properties. He liked the way they softened the border, and they would shear it off flat on the side. Because, you know...that looks so attractive. ;p