Are your large yards expensive to maintain? (Hendersonville, Gallatin: apartment, condo)

[tomfirst]

Hi. I expect to be relocating to Gallatin/Hendersonville from Southern CA soon as my house sells. I am 65 and retired now, and have grown tired of my 33 year current 17,000 sq lot maintenance here. I love having some distance between houses at a reasonable prices, as I see in your area compared to here, but is it worth it? Do you older folks bale from your large lots?

[alleycat]

It depends. Some older folks enjoy working on their yards, others don't; much in the same way that some folks get tired of taking care of a house and move to either a condo or an apartment.

I have a half-acre lawn and used to mow it myself; now I have a "lawn girl". ;-) It cost me $35 each time it's mowed, so it adds up to a few dollars over the season (early April to late October generally), but it's not unreasonably expensive. Sometimes I get her to re-seed and fertilize the lawn in the fall (some years I just say to hell with it).

It's really hard to have a great yard here unless a lot of work is spend on it. We're in an in-between zone between cool season grasses like blueglass and warm season grasses like Bermuda. Most people here have fescue lawns, and fescue doesn't make the best lawn in the world. You CAN have a nice-looking lawn . . . it just takes a significant amount of work and water.

To me, it sort of sounds like you're tired of yard work. So the decision would either to get something where you don't have much lawn, or don't have to care for it yourself, or be willing to pay to have someone else do it. Some people recommend ground covers as an alternate to grass, but I find that it takes just about as much maintenance as grass (although it's probably a good alternate on steep hillsides).

[dspindler]

I agree. It can take a lot of water here. I have heard of fescue 1/4 acre lots using $200-$300 in water per summer. That hasn't been the case this year though. My lawn stayed green all winter because of all of the rain. That's unusual from my experience though. If you want fescue here, just be prepared to water.

[tomfirst]

Thanks for the responses. I guess the grass isn't always greener on the other side...or there are less weeds there . I realize we were never promised a 'Rose Garden' in this life .....but ...hey....why not try? As many of us know....once we buy a home and yard....we have to 'live' with it a long time... usually. green thumbs up!

[46Barb]

When I lived in the northeast US, everyone watered their lawns. Now that I live here, none of my neighbors water except for one that owns a landscaping business.