I ABHOR YARD WORK.
I mean – truly – ABHOR it. I think mowing the grass is a fine thing to do, and I believe it should be mowed with reasonable regularity and I don’t mind that basic expectation from me of my neighborhood. Although I wouldn’t complain about getting some help from a company like Jeremiah’s Landscape Services, that would make my life a lot easier.
But the rest of the crap? Weeding…edging…raking…planting…that is FOR THE BIRDS.
My Dad used to get openly irritated and societal expectations of domestic existence. He didn’t understand why I cleaned my house. His house was never unsanitary or dangerous…but he didn’t dust or mop. He never worried about windows or baseboards. (We didn’t have baseboards.) He thought it was all a rather ridiculous endeavor and couldn’t understand how I developed those habits when I grew up in his home.
He mowed the grass. That was it. Never raked. Never planted. Never weeded. We had no flower beds or anything to tend to other than the length of the grass on a hella hill.
Actually, my Dad didn’t even worry about flooring or the exterior of the house. He put a new roof on when he had to but otherwise the house was basically the same ingredients 30 years after he bought it. He just always felt like he’d rather be doing 100 million things, and spending his money on a 100 million things, before anything relating to the cosmetics of the house or the yard.
And in some ways? I totally agree.
Donnie says if we had the extra money we’d pay someone to do it. But we’d have to have a LOT of extra money because just enough to pay for lawn/yard care? We’d also need some gutter care as well. I hear my friend used a great gutter cleaning service recently that sorted her gutters out quickly and easily. My friend told me that the parallels between her dad and mine were pretty stark. But at least her dad would make use of services similar to Palmetto Tree Service if you wanted to sort out some of your trees. I’d rather spend that on more regular date nights. Or a new bike. There are about 10 things ABOVE lawn care on my list I’d rather spend money on. So, we’d have to have a big jump in income before I’d even want to take that route.
But I get it. No one understands my love of printing/framing/hanging photos. People always look at my walls and say, “I just don’t ever get around to doing that.” I’m the same way with yard work. I appreciate the results. I have friends and family who have GORGEOUS yards and I often want to just enjoy them and take pictures and I totally appreciate the result. But not enough to put forth the effort. But with my photos? I love deciding what to print, what to frame, where to hang it…etc. So…I understand why people put that effort into their yards…I’m just not one of them.
ALL OF THAT SAID…That flower in the picture is growing in my flower bed. Actually, I should say “flower bed” because it is the only flower in there. That and a bunch of weeds. Which I might remove this week since it’s our turn to host family dinner. BUT I MIGHT NOT. I’m not sure how I feel about it.
That flower blooms every summer and I do nothing to make it happen. Please tell me, what is it and can I plant more with minimal effort? I like the idea of doing NOTHING and then BAM! something like this pops up.
It’s a daylily. Super easy to grow and they come back every year. They are bulbs that you plant. You can buy a bag of bulbs at Lowe’s and it will tell you the depth to plant them on the bag. I love daylilies and I have a bunch in my front flower beds. However, the bunnies around here also like them, for dinner, so the flowers never last long for me.
There are actually quite a few bulbs that grow like the day lily – bury them, ignore them, watch them bloom. You could mix a bunch in the bed, if you wanted more variety. A quick trip to Home Depot or Lowes and a couple of questions should do it.
If you want truly “no worries” flower beds — Put daylilies in the sunny spots and hosta in the shady spots. Other than a few animals who might like a snack, these are low/no maintenance items. If you want to get crazy and try another easy plant — try butterfly bush — easy grow, long cones of little flowers that butterflies and hummingbirds LOVE and right before winter you chop it to the ground (or not — we forgot last year and all three of ours are growing like wildfire).
I get that the yardwork isn’t your thing (and I’m so with you on that), but I can’t say enough for spending a day or two with a local garden center that helps plans plantings (a local run place, not like Lowe’s). Years ago, we went to one with a line drawing of my backyard and said, “I don’t want to work too hard and I don’t want to fuss with this — make it pretty.” They laid out an awesome yard and told us the slow growing (low pruning) pretty things to plant. The service was free at my garden center and worth buckets of money. I had a no-brainer yard for years.
I am just the opposite. I hate housework and being cooped up inside. I’d rather be in my yard pulling weeds, watering flowers, piddling in my garden and pruning my roses. It’s relaxing to me.
As for easy peasy plants, day lilies fit the bill but if you’d like easy annuals then get about 6 or 7packs of zinnia seeds (the giant kind, not the Lilliputian varieties ) and muss up the dirt in your bed, sprinkle the seeds liberally around Good Friday every year and water well and then every few days(when you think of it) until they get more established. They grow big and rowdy and are great cutting flowers. Also, mid summer when they start looking like they’re going to seed, pull them up and shake them out and they’ll bloom again in October. I know this sounds like more work than you want but really, it’s easy and it’s definitely rewarding.
I feel exactly the same way you do about yard work. My husband hates it, too, so we really should have bought a condo rather than a house.
I do love all the flowers that come from bulbs, and you don’t have to mess with them after you get them planted. There are tulips, lilies of all types, grape hyacinths, daffodils, and many more. They really make your yard look beautiful for the times that they bloom.
I cannot second how EASY daylillies are! And they come in so many different colors and varieties and do very well in the south. I’m from Louisiana but I assume Alabama weather is not all that terrible different, plus you already have an example that seems to be doing fine. Buy some bulbs and outsource them to your kids! I bet they’re old enough to dig a hole 4″ deep. 🙂 It’s “fun” and you get pretty flowers. Win-win!
Daylilies are awesome! I bought one last year, planted it, forgot about it…thought it died! Not only did it come back this year, there are TWO! They often multiply. 🙂 They come in many colors, too, so make your yard look beautiful with no effort.
I share your feelings about yardwork. In addition, I have a black thumb, so it’s particularly discouraging for me to even THINK about flowers. That said, this is my almost foolproof gardening formula:
1) Go to Home Depot.
2) Buy PERENNIALS only, and pay attention to how much sun they’ll need and how tall they’ll get.
3) Plant.
4) Occasionally water if you don’t get rain for several days, but basically ignore.
5) Enjoy a garden that comes back every year with no help from you!
my mom always called that a tigerlilly… we had a ring of them around a large tree in our front yard growing up. mom never planted them, they just were always there every year around this time.
I was never a fan of yard work growing up. I hated it! But now I have a house with a nice yard and I don’t mind getting out there and cleaning it up. We have flower beds and a garden, but I try to fill up the beds with plants that will come back each year. It’s too expensive to re-plant every summer!
I agree with everyone else regarding the hardiness of daylilies. They do well in poor soil and in drought conditions, too. I have a bunch of them and — get this! — I just started with one, that a secretary from my department was giving away when I was in grad school. Like most perennials, daylilies eventually divide and have to be thinned. At that point (probably every 4-5 years or so, but your growing conditions are probably MUCH different than mine here in northern Colorado) you can spread them out to other areas of the flower bed or what-have-you.
I kinda like yard work, but these days just don’t seem to have the time for it. And I need to thin and re-plant the tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinth (I have hundreds of those, if anyone wants any :p), but supposedly the best time to do that is in the fall (at least around here; YMMV), and fall weather can be so unpredictable, and I’m usually busy with other things.