I prefer to avoid any more "Gardening"
 

Hello Folks.

If all goes well, we should be heading out to the Villages in the next two weeks.

So I have a question.

The house we are selling, has a BIG lawn..Bigger slope and Big yard..wife loves to garden I hate yard work.

We looked at some 3/2 courtyard villas..with, thank the Lord, small front yards....can I fill that front yard with..concrete..or AstroTurf ?

Yes, I know you can hire someone...I also know about "Honey-do" lists
Ole married Rex

Rex

PS..I look forward to giving my mower and weed eater as a gift to the new buyer. : )

grrr rex:

I live in a Designer, so can't speak about Villas. But, I know you're much more restricted than I am as to what you can do!

But, be assured: you shouldn't need to ever do yard work again! :D

I worked in my yard "up north" virtually every weekend for ages and ages. Here, my emphysema conspires against me to do this hard work. As does the heat and humidity!

My biggest problem is that I've yet to find a landscape/garden service that'll do regular "personal maintenance," including, maybe, quarterly changeout of my flowering plants - the way TV's public areas are done! Granted, this has not been high on my To Do List!

Welcome to TOTV, to TV!

SWR
:beer3:

I vote with REX
 

I'm retiring March 1st to come to TV. That includes all work. Golf - pool - walking - dinners yes. painting - lanscaping - pest control - plumbing will be hired out.:crap2:

You have electric, cable, phone and water lines in that area, so I would forget about the idea of pouring concrete there.

Rex I don't know about concrete or AstroTurf - but haven't seen either here; however, alot of the courtyard villas where we used to live in TV had small rocks (river rock? I'm not sure what it's called) instead of grass in the yard; and had minimal other landscaping.

Small rocks...
 

Thanks folks.

Small rocks are fine with me.


Rex

Remember to clear it first with the Architectural Review Board. Hate to see you have to change it after it's done.

Welcome...and I hope you enjoy all aspects of your life here in Paradise!

I too hated yard work in retirement. I hire it done now but a CYV is a good choice for someone who wants absolutely no yard maintenance. Buy one that is 'zero scaped' or you will have to have someone take out the grass and plants. You will have to have some brush around the place so choose the slowest growers that are excessively drought tolerant. I suggest you also find someone to do the house cleaning and other sundry chores.

CYV are the only houses that you may eliminate all the grass. All other homes are deed restricted to have a certain percentage of grass. We put all stone in the front and a combination of stone and mulch in the back and side.
No matter what you do you still have to weed. You can hire it done but it only takes me about 1/2 hour a month to spray the weeds dead.

CYV gardening
 

If your wife likes to garden, I would suggest not putting rock everywhere - IMO, makes it harder to plant things, move things, etc. Just put it where you never want to move it or dig into it much. I love to garden, but our interior lot CYV is enough for me to handle.

I don't do much in the front, except to weed occasionally, although I do plan to replace the liriope (I've also heard it called monkey grass) with something prettier. The rest of the front is green and only needs trimmed a couple of times a year. We kind of have 2 rows of hedge-type plants (ligustrum and a rounded shrub that is slow-growing - maybe boxwood)? Keep meaning to look that one up. Also have a crape myrtle there and a small grass patch - but that could be rock and be just fine.

In the back, we have dug all the way around so I could add more plants, including herbs and veggies. I have these beds filled with bark nuggets. But - you don't have to do that. Your wife could start small and see how it goes.

I love it, because I can see all my efforts from the lanai and the side patio. Once we moved down after renting it out for 4 years, I was wishing we had a larger corner lot, but after a few months of digging and weeding, even though I LIKE to do this, I've decided that the smaller lot is just perfect - satisfies my gardening yens, but keeps me under control. But what I truly, truly love is that it is all right there and visible - I catch every little bloom :) I'm also still in the moving things around stage, figuring out how I can improve or add things without getting a jungle look.

Oh yes....retire from yard work, house work and all other work.....true paradise. I had a friend who was a housewife, did not have a job outside the home. When her husband announced he was retiring from work she told him if he got to retire she did also. So...no more house work or cooking unless she choose to do so. I was amazed but it worked. They hired a maid to come in once a week, hired a lawn company and though they didn't eat out every meal her husband discovered he loved to cook! What a retirement. Too bad they didn't know about TV. They would have loved it and probably would have chosen a CYV with zero maintenance yard.
Suzanne

a courtyard villa should do it!

use rock if you won't move stuff around much (as noted above)
or bark/mulch if you (or wife) will.

palms and succulents (agave, cactus, etc) are slow growing,
just get cold hardy ones because it does get cold.

Ohiogirl and I still like to garden. You can take the girl out of Ohio, but you can't take Ohio out of the girl. Lotta farmers hereabouts.

You got it right Gracie
 

Although I have 2 sisters and 2 daughters (who partly grew up in Ohio) and none of them seem to have this "gardening" gene. I love it, though.

Here in Ohio this summer, planted some tomatoes for my stepfather in the "topsy turvy" or upside down planters (his are doing great - I haven't watered mine -1 cherry tomato- as faithfully), some other tomatoes and peppers and herbs, and lots of flowers.

My sisters and one daughter could probably live without any of them (although I gave my daughters pre-planted herb pots). To be fair, the oldest daughter (in NC) has 2-1/2 kids, an almost full-time job and a border collie. She's excused for awhile.

The younger daughter (in Orlando) thinks it's absolutely amazing that things grow. She likes to cook, so appreciates the herb garden.

You would think I had won the lottery when something blooms or fruits - did I tell you about my Meyer lemon in Florida?

Anyway, some of us still love to garden, but it has been wiser to downsize, at least for me.

Met the buyers, a nice young couple.
Like us when we started in love and not overly rich. : )

So I was happy to give him my new lawnmower and he was happy to get it.
: )

A perfect deal...everyone is happy.

Rex