How to have a low cost/maintenance lawn or yard in Austin (Howe: HOA, houses)

[teasipmom]

Hello,

My yard has quite a few trees (both front and back). Also, I have all grass (St. Augustine) in both front and back yards. I pay someone to mow my lawn twice a month ($35/mow), mainly because I just don't have the time to maintain it myself.

Note: the cost for mowing includes the grass and edging and bagging the remains. No hedge trimming (that would be extra).

Although my grass doesn't grow much in the winter, my trees shed a lot of leaves around December and then again in April.

At first, I paid someone to mow until about October, and then paid someone to do leaf cleanup a couple of times before they started mowing again in May. I have now come to the conclusion that it costs about the same to just have someone continue to mow through these months, because they get the leaves when they mow and I don't have to pay for leaf cleanup (because they charge a lot more for leaf cleanup).

I have hedges that need to be trimmed about twice a year at the least. I try to do this myself because it's so easy.

I have a crepe myrtle that needs to be pruned now, or else it won't bloom in the spring.

The yard came with beds that have mulch. I figure it needs mulch at least once a year, otherwise, the weeds grow in the beds.

I've had some sprinkler issues (first a leak, then the backflow preventer has broken twice [these cost $400]).

I have some erosion issues in the back yard now, that probably need to be addressed (all the sprinkler pipes are coming uncovered and the dirt is eroding from a concrete slab that the previous owners installed).

So, in all, I'm probably paying about $1100 a year for minimal maintenance (that includes sprinkler fixes) and that doesn't include hedge trimming. Doesn't this seem like a lot just for yard maintenance?

So I'm considering hiring a landscape architect to xeriscape my front and back yard, with the goal to be low maintenance and low water. Has anyone done something like this? Were you able to reduce the cost of maintenance of your yard? Was it worth it? I'd be willing to get rid of the grass if it would reduce my maintenance cost.

[clarksvillemom]

I'm serioulsy cosidering LawnPop artificial turf. A neighbor had it installed and it is nothing like the turf of old days. It's soft, it's pretty, etc. No watering!

[Bp25]

Depending on soil type and if you have a slab foundation, you will need to have some way of maintaining moisture around foundation if you stop watering the lawn.

[clarksvillemom]

true

[eirenecat]

Artificial turf is SUPER expensive. I looked into it in 2011 for our old house; was going to run about $20K! I had the entire front and backyards xeriscaped for $6K instead.

[Trainwreck20]

Several houses in our neighborhood have switched to XS yards, but I have no idea on the cost savings. They have quite a few plants and I think they probably still water, but there is no grass to mow. No idea on the leaf maintenance, but I am sure there is some as they do have trees.

I can't get a really good view of this yard, but it looks very nice and no grass at all. I am sure there is a decent amount of plant maintenance, though.

[cBach]

Some things to consider:

* $1100 a year is not that much for lawn care, to be honest.
* Make sure your HOA (if you have one) approves of XS if you choose to go that route.
* Also consider that this is not really an arid or even semi-arid environment. The XS will look good the first year, but if you don't consistently weed it, it will start to look overgrown. We get 30"+ of rain a year, weeds will grow on rocks with that kind of rain. I see many XS yards that are just overgrown with weeds.

[eirenecat]

When I completely xeriscaped my front and back yards, I actually kept my monthly lawn maintenance people--I just told them to come and weed, blow leaves from trees, etc. I saved money from not having to water my former lawn, and that was a pretty decent amount of savings, though I am not sure during the time I lived there that it equaled out what I spent on the xeriscaping. My yard looked a lot better xeriscaped, though.

[leorah]

We xeriscaped our front yard two years ago because our huge heritage oak wouldn't let anything green but weeds grow under it and we were tired of mud, dirt and the weeds. We insisted on the installation of heavy commercial trade weedblock under several different sizes of rock and decomposed granite. We haven't had any issues with weeds. We saw a small savings in water usage (we have drip irrigation around the foundation and in the flower beds and around the tree and a few plants.) December/January we do have leaves and this year particularly, a lot of acorns. However, a quality lawn vac/blower and a few hours now and then cleans that up easily. We liked the front yard so much that this fall we xeriscaped the back yard, too. No big trees back there so no need for much maintenance. At the same time we took out some overgrown shrubs that needed regular trimming and replaced them with low maintenance plants. We used to pay $35 for regular mowing and trimming and $175 twice per season for shrub trimming. With xeriscape everywhere our overall water usage has dropped even more. We figure the payback period for the entire xeriscape will be about 8 years. We are very happy we did it.

[Seguinite]

Originally Posted by teasipmom

I have a crepe myrtle that needs to be pruned now, or else it won't bloom in the spring.

Your crepe myrtle will be just fine without pruning. Maybe a little 'shaggy', but it'll do what it's supposed to do.