Who does the lawn care at your house?

[jess_g]

I am taking a break from mowing my lawn right now. I am wondering if you (the mom) mow the lawn or if someone else does (maybe a dh)? I am thiniking of giving up this year and hiring someone but don't know what it would cost. We have a small yard but its in front of the house so it looks realy bad when its the only one on the block that is not mowed and did I mention that I hate mowing the lawn. So I am wondering what others do about yard work and if you hire someone or do it on your own. Maybe in the next week or 2 I can get some estimates on getting it mowed every 2 weeks.

Thanks,

Jessica.

[Moneypenny]

DH mows our lawn, partly because he likes to and partly because he's the SAHP so he's home more often to do it (although he does do it at a time when DD is not home because we don't want her outside when the mower is running). I do the rest of the yardwork (gardening, weed pulling, etc).

I wouldn't mind mowing the lawn except it's big (almost .5 acre and very hilly). When we had a push mower I physically just couldn't push it up the hills. We got a used riding mower last year and now DH won't even let me try it because he likes it so much, lol!

[trales]

It depends on the week. I would say it is split almost evenly.

[MommyofAmaya]

The "yard guy" does the lawn. DH hates to do it and would rather spend time with the kids. I don't mind b/c we had a weekly housekeeper when I worked, and intend to again when I go back to work.

I wouldn't consider mowing the lawn myself.:bag

[lizzywednesday]

DH does ours, but it's tiny so he doesn't mind.

I much prefer digging in the dirt.

[Penny's Pappa]

I mow the yard about once a week. I leave my grass relatively high when I mow (2") so it grows back in pretty fast. I should probably mow like every 5 days, but like you, I don't particularly enjoy mowing either!

If my yard was significantly large (like, in need of a riding mower large) I would think about hiring it out, but for anything smaller, I wouldn't want to spend the money.

[TwoBees]

The HOA :D

[lchang25000]

We hire someone to do our lawncare.

[TwinFoxes]

I've never mown a lawn in my life, and have no desire to try.

DH does the lawn care now, much to his annoyance. We had a lawn guy in LA, where EVERYONE has a lawn guy. It was $80 a month (he came once a week). Here in NOVA, the cheapest we could find was twice that, and they pretty much just cut the lawn (in LA our guy took care of the plants and watered the lawn too.) I thought we'd keep the service this year, but he decided it was too much $$ (he never spends money on himself.) I did just plant some plants and flowers, and got rid of the weeds. We were "that house" but in just a couple of weeks we made our front lawn look great. Our neighbor told us the owners before us (we just bought in November) never did anything, which explains why everything looked so crappy.

[infomama]

DH does it. He has a really nice fast zero turn mower. He always kindly declines when I offer to mow.

[mommylamb]

DH does ours. It's only a very small lot (we're an end unit town house, so it's our side lot and a portion of the frong of the house). We only have an electric mower. Kind of like a vaccuum for outside:wink2:.

[egoldber]

The very friendly yard guys who come every 10 days. :tongue5: Not happening for me and DH hates it. One of the many reasons we are considering moving to a townhome.


Here in NOVA, the cheapest we could find was twice that, and they pretty much just cut the lawn

Ours is $30 every time they come, which is about every 10 days. But it's Joe and His Brother and His Cousin's Lawn Service, not a name service. They do other things besides just mowing the lawn, but I have to ask them specifically and they charge extra (but very reasonable IMO).

If other people in your neighborhood use a service, try and catch them when they are there and ask for a quote. That's what we did.

[wendibird22]

I've never mown a lawn in my life, and have no desire to try.


We have an acre and a riding lawn mower. I don't even know how to turn the thing on and have no plans to learn. Same thing goes for the snow blower!

[brittone2]

DH. He pushmows our current property. We both grew up with large lots (my parents had 3.5 acres, his had 5) so we are kind of accustomed to it.

The rental we are moving to has a larger grassy area than our current house and thankfully the landlord is leaving a riding mower for us. I would happily do that while listening to my iPod if DH wants to watch the kids. I hate pushmowing but the riding mower is okay with me. I'm short and always have a tough time pushing our pushmower up hills, etc...like I don't have enough leverage or something LOL.

eta: we just got a quote for getting our current home mowed once it is on the market and we're out of state. We asked the guy who does 2 of my other neighbors' lots. We have 1.3 acres but much of that is wooded. We really only have maybe a half acre of real grass that needs mowed/trimmed. He's charging us $30. We have a good bit of shade so every other week will probably work (and then the hot summer will set in anyway down here and cook our grass...).

[HIU8]

We had a service (a guy on our street owns a landscaping company that does lawn mowing). It was $28 a mow (and they did all of our trimming, seeding etc...). However, we just gave it up b/c we needed to re-allocate the $$ (read could no longer afford it unless I go back to work). We have a lawn mower and DH usually does the lawn once a week. I do it if he cannot. We have 1/3 an acre and it takes us 1 hour without bagging and 1/5 hours if we have to bag (so it's really no big deal).

[MoJo]

I do it, including now at 35 weeks pregnant. DH feels bad about it, but he has grass allergies, and I can't justify paying for it on our income. The neighbor charged $20 just for the smaller front yard one time, and the back always needs it worse because it grows faster.

This time of year, with all the rain and no shade, it's every week. The leaves are coming out now to provide shade, so before long it will be able to go to about every two weeks, and sometimes by August, it can go three to four if we aren't getting much rain.

After baby comes, DH will do it, probably all summer (I wasn't able to do it for three months after DD#1 arrived).

[almostmom]

I mow our lawn, and it's pretty big - it takes 45 minutes to an hour to do front and back. I kind of love it, because it looks so good after. I find it mostly relaxing -- it's nice me time when I can get it. But it does weigh on me when I can't get to it in time and it looks all crazy.

I've often thought about finding a neighborhood kid to mow every other week, so the burden on me would be half. I would pay somebody $20 for that, but I won't pay $30 a mow for every week, which is what the service was who did our house before we moved in. And that was 7 years ago.

[HIU8]

I asked my dad the other day how long it used to take him to mow our lawn when I was a kid (comparing to what I have now). We had just over a 1/2 acre. If my dad used a power walking mower it took 4 hours (no bagging). Bagging took 6 hours. When we finally got a riding mower my dad was so happy. It took around 2 hours. My parents never got a lawn service. My dad did it every single time. I didn't feel so bad having DH mow ours for 1 to 1.5 hours a week after that conversation.

[belovedgandp]

I do it and actually kind of like it.

Before kids, DH always mowed. I started mowing when I became a SAHM and wanted to use our nights and weekends to either do things as a family or go out with my friends. So I started mowing for completely selfish reasons. I'd rather spend an hour of naptime one afternoon doing it than lose an evening out. Over the past 6 years it's moved from me just mowing occasionally especially in the spring to the lawn is my thing. I always mow it, trim it, fertilize, etc. I still need DH to edge the driveway because I haven't mastered that and he does the "gardening" with the flower beds, bush trimming, and stuff.

It's decent exercise and my own selfish time. Not exactly quiet with the mower going, but no one whines or yells at me. I was sadly happy to get a better trimmer for Mother's Day two years ago.

I thought DH was going to have to mow this spring. This time of year it needs to be mowed every 5 days since I had our DC3 in early March by c-section. My dad came and mowed twice and I've been doing it since 4 1/2 weeks postpartum.

[Twoboos]

At our previous house, DH did it. And we argued about it every week, since DH claimed to like the the lawn to look "natural" (read: OVER GROWN) and would only mow every 2-3 weeks. It was terrible. I couldn't do it myself b/c all that grass/pollen would send me into a giant allergy attack.

When we moved I convinced him that we should just try having a service do it. Now the lawn guy comes once every 7-10days, and DH is delighted to get home from work and see the lawn is done! The lawn guy is pretty reasonable and will do additional things if we ask - spring/fall cleanup, edging beds, etc.

[smilequeen]

My husband grew up in Hong Kong and Toronto. He has never in his life turned on a lawn mower. I have, but only a few times when I was a teenager. We don't even own a lawn mower. We have a big yard (1.7 acre lot, but partially wooded). We have a landscaping company that takes care of everything. It is not cheap, but there is NO WAY we would keep up with it on our own.

[TwinFoxes]

Ours is $30 every time they come, which is about every 10 days. But it's Joe and His Brother and His Cousin's Lawn Service, not a name service. They do other things besides just mowing the lawn, but I have to ask them specifically and they charge extra (but very reasonable IMO).

If other people in your neighborhood use a service, try and catch them when they are there and ask for a quote. That's what we did.

That's how we found our old guys. And it took a while to find them...there are a lot of "name" services around here. $30/10 days is much more reasonable. Too bad we live in different parts of FFX...I've found most lawn guys don't like to travel too far (understandable with gas prices.)

[khalloc]

I've never mowed the lawn or even used a lawn mower, my husband does it.

I would try it, except that he has one of those huge walk-behind landscape mowers that is a John Deere. It has a huge mowing deck and is really loud. It scares me!

[TwoBees]

Ok, I have to confess, I would most likely not mow the lawn myself if our HOA didn't take care of it, not because I can't do it, but because I am petrified of getting a toe cut off in the mower. :eek:

[SnuggleBuggles]

I have someone mow every 1-2 weeks, he comes as needed (he has other work in my neighborhood so he just pays attention). I found him from an ad in our town's newsletter. Worth every penny for us not to have give up a few hours to lawn care.

Beth

[JamiMac]

My DH does the lawn care here, except planting flowers. :) He loves to do it and takes great pride in it, so I let him. :ROTFLMAO:

[o_mom]

DH or I depending on who has time. I have the mowing down to 1 hr start to finish, so I can do it while DS3 naps. The trimming etc. takes longer, but that is less frequent. We were having trouble getting it mowed often enough when it was just DH doing it (as I couldn't get it done with the schedules last year). He doesn't really have time after work and if it rained on a weekend it put us even farther behind.

I also edged this week and there is a pile of mulch with my name on it out there.

[jgenie]

We have a service do our lawn. DH is not handy at all. I have been thinking about trying to do the lawn this year, but with a new baby I'm probably biting off more than I can chew.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

We hire someone to do our lawncare.

:yeahthat:

initially we bought a lawnmower and DH tired to mow it himself (and i would help with trimming etc), but once i got preggo it was just too much trouble...sometimes he would have to cut it every weekend it seemed and it would take up so much time & effort, as he wasn't really into that sort of thing. plus i live in TX where 8 months out of the year it's too hot to spend time outside doing yardwork (IMO). so a few months before DS was born we decided it wasn't worth the hassle and hired a service to care for our lawn on a regular basis. our lawn gets mowed every week plus they take care of a few other things. it's $$ well spent IMO. that way our weekends are free to relax and do our own stuff as a family instead of spending that time doing chores we hate. neither of us has a "green thumb" or any real interest in gardening/upkeep.

[maestramommy]

Dh mows the lawn. I've done it a couple of times, but otherwise it's his thing.

[jent]

Usually DH, though I've done it on rare occasion. I have no problem with mowing the lawn, but I don't have much time to do it-- when I'm not at work I usually have DD with me and I'm afraid to have her anywhere near the mower.

When we first moved to our house, DH was excited & proud to do the lawn, but now it's just another chore to do. Also, he's Mr. Organic, so he doesn't want to put chemicals on the lawn or even water it. I would be ok with this, except he hasn't taken the time to research what organic techniques might help keep our lawn looking nice (and he ignores the articles I clip out from the paper), and it's just been looking shabbier and shabbier.

OK, now I need to add another to-do to my list--either come up with a plan to work on the lawn & get DH on board, or find someone to help us with organic lawn care.

[salsah]

we have a gardener (included in the rent). even if it wasn't included in the rent, we would probably hire someone to do it. i think it is just more work than either dh or i are willing to take on.

[Piglet]

We gave up and hired a lawn care company a few years ago. No regrets - DH gets his weekends back and the lawn looks good. At the time, it was even a reasonable cost, since we would have had to buy a lawn mower that year and didn't buy one as a result.