Lawn or Garden, which do you prefer? I occasionally leaf through landscaping books and I'm always amazed at how little grass/lawn many of the photographed yards and gardens have. My yard is primarily grass with a small raised vegetable/herb garden bed and some mulch beds for flowers and shrubs here and there. While I'd love to have a huge garden and tons of landscaping, we have two dogs and two children and all six of us love to play outdoors on what little lawn we have. We do plan to add a path from our backdoor to our pergola/grilling/seating area, but as for now it's just grassy. However, we have a lot of goals and work to do in our yard through the next few years.
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| My small but grassy lawn |
There are many perks to keeping a grassy lawn. You have room to play and a place to add or move things (swingsets, lawn furniture, etc.) and beautiful (as long as there's rain!) grass to play on. You also have grass to mow, which smells wonderful and the clippings can be used mulch your vegetables or add to your compost pile. Grassy lawns are great because they are versatile! Some downsides are that, well, you'll have to mow it. If the weather is dry for a long time you might have to use resources to water it.
Some people prefer to occupy their yard with gardens made up of vegetables, shrubbery, and flowers with only some (if any) grass. These landscaped gardens are visually attractive and since grass is often minimal you don't have to mow. You can incorporate vegetables and herbs with flowers so that the beautiful landscaping is also useful. A lot of times landscaped yards and gardens make a piece of property more valuable. The downside is that there often is not much lawn space to play, and if you decide you no longer like a certain layout or want to replace a garden bed with grass it's a lot of work to undo the landscaping.
In a perfect world I'd simply like a lot more property. I would do lots of landscaping with pretty flowers and shrubbery and trees in the front and have large vegetable gardens and more trees and lots of grassy room for my kids and dogs to play in the back. If I had lots of room I might even like to put in a koi or gold fish pond with some landscaping and seating around it. I'd love to have a So, what is your preference? Do you prefer ornamental plants or even vegetables or herbs all over your property? Do you like pretty landscaping and spending time tending to gardens and beds? Or do you like grass, grass everywhere with lots and lots to mow? Is there a difference between what you prefer and what you currently have?
Over the years I have removed most of the grass in my front yard. I have a small section of grass in the tree lawn, but the rest is perennials. I have to admit, I like the look and feel of it, but it's a ton of work. Every Spring, I do a major clean up. Throughout the Summer, there's a lot of maintenance involved (weeding, etc.) My backyard belongs to my 2 dogs. It's all grass, with many freshly dug holes;-)
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