Has anyone dryscaped their home? Who did they use? What does it cost?
 

Hoping to eliminate lawn maintenance and paying for irrigation by just using stone, does anyone have any experience with that? Is it recommended? Any downsides? Thank you for any responses

First have to get ARC approval. Unless you are in CYV you must maintain a percentage of lawn, which your plan will be revealed at ARC approval. We have pine straw, and rock in our beds. Not a fan of the rock, weeds are a pain.

While we don’t have issues, snakes do love sunbathing on them, and shedding their skin

Thank you very much,

Even CYV no longer allow all rock. Try using pathways and ground covers. Also just make planting beds larger to eliminate grass.

previous posters are correct. there was a news article not long ago, of a home that did what u propose, & it was a disaster. they didnt get approval, & had to remove all the work they put into it. i felt bad, but you really have to check out whatever project you're considering & make sure it's approved

Beds can be a problem no matter what the ground cover is. Zoysia, St. Augustine, and all manners of weeds invade them. Shrubs grow too quickly here, unless they are dwarf varieties. We find it harder to hire help to trim shrubs and weed, than to find people to mow the lawn. We wish we had left more turf than thinking it would be easier to replace it with beds.

As already stated, ARC would not approve. North of 466, where irrigation and potable water are one in the same, the sewer charge on irrigation water is enough to make me consider the option if it was allowed.

We are in a courtyard villa and have no lawn. It is great for us.
I traded my lawnmower in to the landscape guys for $50 and was happy to do it!

Biggest obstacle is ARC approval. If somehow you can do that, the rest is pretty straightforward. We are on a corner lot and had a landscaper put down rock and low maintenance shrubs and a couple of sabal palms. Maintenance is my spray bottle of round-up every couple of weeks. One of the better things we did.

Again, getting approvals and such is the big deal. If you need more info , send a note.

DO you mind telling me who did and a ball park dollar amount, thanks

We had an oversized corner lot CYV. It's our 2nd CYV. The first CYV came with all rocks, and we loved it.

Our 2nd home was new, a corner lot with a whole lot more are to cover. We installed a 1,300 sq ft birdcage in the back, so that reduced the amount of rock required. It was still a lot of rock. We were right around $11K for the grass removal, weed barrier, and rock. This included 2 large Sylvester palms, 2 large Mule palms, 5 retaining walls, and quite a bit of new landscaping.

Note that this was before covid, and the folks that did the work were very hard to get to finish. I had to call them daily to get them to show up. Luckily, we agreed no payment until finished - other than the cost of materials, and I paid for those directly. I don't believe they are in business anymore, but I would never hire them again anyway. Luckily, the work they did was great.

Spray week killer once every 3 months and you're good. I got a Ryobi 18v sprayer - it's fantastic. No pumping. Just fill and spray!

We didn't dryscape but replaced all of our lawn with Asian Jasmine ground cover (as used everywhere by The Villages). ARC were delighted that we wanted to do so and rushed approval through the week we applied.

Very little maintenance - it does not grow very tall but just needs the edges strimming back every two or three months. We haven't had the irrigation on since it became established.

Not true. This is going to vary by district, and even by Unit within a Village. We are South of SR44, and a new villa community was completed this year in our neighborhood. Two residents in those villas sought, and received, ARC approval to remove all grass from their yard and replace with dryscape.

This is so true! We have too many shrubs and bushes in the beds and weeds seem to just take over. The next house will be mostly grass.

How much did it cost?

Get ARC approval first or you could be paying to return your property back to it’s original state!

Consider living in the desert perhaps Arizona or the middle east

Dry Scape
 

Major tip: Pay way up for very thick quality landscape fabric and the best installer you can find. Otherwise, you will have to constantly work on weeks (no matter how many chemicals you put on the rocks). I regret the cheap landscape fabric under rocks in the front-most portion of my house every day. On the other hand, I had quality fabric with a good installer in the parts near the door and I have about one tiny weed a month in those areas.

$5 a square foot will get you something basic.

Very interested
 

I've thought about using ground cover in place of grass and would love to learn more from you. Not in TV atm but maybe we could connect when I am back. Is there some way to do that?

Per the query above. Landscape by McGowan (Sabrina) did our work in 2012.
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We have a pretty fair sized corner lot, The rock is costlier than the plants for the most part, because it's so labor intensive and a lot of rock goes a little way.
The rock comes from Dirt Cheap on Highway 27/441.

We did spend several thousand $$$ (more than $3K, less than $10K, maybe $6 guessing) on the landscaping but overhauled everything. I'm sure it's a lot higher now.
If I'd been paying $100/month for lawncare (or whatever it costs), I'd be money ahead by now.

Certainly. Drop me a PM when you are here.

If your landscape designer is "self taught", remember this is a SCIENCE. There is a reason there are college courses on the subject.

Landscape Architect is an actual DEGREE you EARN. None I know of are doing residential landcapes in this area, though a (very) few of us studied, study, and took courses.

"My parents came down from Minnesota and with no prior experience or schooling on the subject, we are now making millions designing your landscape" might NOT be a good sign.

Golden Duranta, Flax lily, or loropetulums in your design are typical of "fake designer" designs and VERY high maintenance in most locations.
Also, if your designer has YOU picking out the plants for your house with very little discussion... you don't have a real designer.

When your landscape came out a weedy mess and overgrown in 3 years or less, you are in the 80% of aftermarket landscape customers, that were fooled into believing large advertising budgets, or the fact they are working down the street, means they can do a good job. From what I see South of CR44 in the newer sections, it is getting worse. My apologies to all of you that I run a small company and only do 1 house at a time.

I would be very interested in seeing those yards. I'm moving to a courtyard villa in Richmond next week and would like to replace most of the grass on my corner lot. Where is that villa neighborhood? I have plans for extending patio areas and a birdcage, with some privacy and shade shrubs. I liked a previous reply about using Asiatic
Jasmine ground cove. I also like using rocks if it's done right.