Lawn service

[Davnasty]

There may be truth in the marketing for lawns aspect but I'd be skeptical of your source on that if they said broadleaf herbicides were useless. They're generally considered revolutionary in the agricultural industry.

Well you can argue* that they are useful in a field of wheat or corn or oats.  Not in a field of soybeans, obviously, And not in a lawn.  A lawn is not agricultural.  And a lawn does a lot better with species diversity.

* There is a lot of discussion in agricultural circles about going back to mechanical weed suppression.

I don't dispute the things you mention. I'm just saying if someone said Monsanto had to invent a use for broadleaf herbicide in order to sell it then that's crazy talk. I find a lot of stories involving Monsanto are made up. That's not a defense of Monsanto or any of the other major agrochemical companies. I think the worst part about the made up stuff is that it waters down the real problems.

On the other hand it's entirely plausible/likely that herbicide manufacturers pushed the idea that other stuff in your lawn is a weed to sell even more herbicide. I'd be interested in reading about the history of that if anyone has sources. I'm having trouble finding much background on it but it could be because I'm not searching the right terms.

I've read other histories that suggest the idea of a pure grass lawn has been around much longer than modern herbicides.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/the-american-obsession-with-lawns/

https://www.planetnatural.com/organic-lawn-care-101/history/

The Levitts, who also build subdivisions in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Cape Cod, and Puerto Rico (several of them also called Levittown), pioneered the established lawn, which residents were required to keep up but forbidden to fence in. The importance of a neat, weed-free, closely-shorn lawn was promoted intensely in the newsletters that went out to all homeowners in these subdivisions, along with lawn-care advice on how to reach this ideal.

But also

Clover, which takes nitrogen from the air and deposits it in the earth where your grass can use it, was an accepted, even encouraged part of lawns until the early fifties. It only acquired its weed status because the earliest broad-leaf 2,4-D herbicides killed it off along with the dandelions.

[scottish]

I pay for weed control.   DW has bad allergies, and you're not allowed to do it yourself in Ontario.     I used to pull them by hand, but I could never keep up.

I sympathize with her - I am allergic to house dust and feathers, and mildly to dogs and cats.  And pollen a bit. And probably mold in fall from wet leaves (not tested, but my doctor thought that was what caused all my fall issues).

Any weed that is animal pollinated (bees, wasps, beetles, flies, butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, bats) isn't an issue.  They usually have scents and coloured attractive flowers to attract the pollinators.  The pollen stays on the flower until the pollinator arrives.  So goldenrod is not an allergen, for example.  It gets blamed because it blooms at the same time as ragweed.  We don't really notice the wind pollinated flowers because they are usually the same colour as the rest of the plant (usually green). 

What does she do for tree pollen?  They aren't weeds and some trees sure do put out pollen.  I used to have a yellow car every spring - because it was covered in white pine pollen.

Plus 2 houses ago (very rural area) I made it a project to eradicate ragweed from our short street.  Every time I walked the dog I pulled out a minimum of 100 plants - in spring it was easy to get 100 seedlings in 20 steps.  After a few years we had almost no ragweed, and I noticed the difference.  Ragweed pollen travels far, so just eradicating it in our yard would have been useless when there was so much growing in the ditches.  That is true of most of the pollens that cause allergies - if there are any vacant lots near you, check them for the airborne pollen plants.  Cities have bylaws about weed control because of this.

We don't have any pine trees, but we do have 4 maples and an oak.   AFAIK they aren't a big problem.   Peak allergy season for DW is August-September, which is also ragweed season.

[partgypsy]

According to this reference, clover was commonly part of grass seed mixes for lawn up until the 1950s. It's disappearance was in association with the introduction and broader use of pesticides for lawn care. https://news.wttw.com/2021/05/01/clover-lawns-went-mainstream-maligned-now-they-re-making-comeback

[Arbitrage]

I did my own yard work for four years at my first house, in Southern California.  Tiny yard, but it was a pain.  Mowing wasn't a big deal, but the care of the many hedges/plants and the constant weeding really weighed on my very short weekends.  I wasn't doing a great job, partially due to personally trying to conserve water, and partially due to my personal skill and lack of motivation.  I capitulated and paid for service for the remainder of the time we lived there. 

Now I live in WA with a much larger property, and again I take care of it myself - I'm only working part-time and as a result the yard care isn't such a huge percentage of my free time.  In addition, it's no longer a year-round task!  Effort is minimal for 8 or so months - very little growth during the colder periods, and during the summer the culture here is to let the yards go brown, so there's also not much effort required in mid-late summer. 

No plans to outsource it again in this environment, though we'll see as I get older.  Also might need some professional help at some point, as our dog is tearing up our backyard with an unfortunate digging habit.  Help needed not so much with the grassy areas as the other areas.  TBD.

[jpdx]

I mow the lawn, pull the weeds, prune the trees, clean the gutters, change the car's oil, and maintain the house in pretty much every way. I find it all very satisfying -- it can be hard work, and it can be time consuming, but still satisfying. This is one of the joys of mustachianism and I have found this blog to be inspirational in terms of appreciating physical labor, learning new skills, and taking care of what's yours.

Regarding lawns in general, always look for opportunities to replace sections of grass with something better. Raised beds full of veggies, shrubs and flowers, mulch or wood chips, boulders, etc.

[ATtiny85]

... I find it all very satisfying -- it can be hard work, and it can be time consuming, but still satisfying. ...

Jealous, I get little satisfaction from the yard work (some of the other tasks listed are much closer to being satisfying.)

We are in a house with the smallest yard we have ever had, so my disdain is at its lowest level ever. It is small enough that I even don't mind too much of staying up on the weeds more. I go out most afternoons (after sitting in home office for a very long time) and just do a quick loop. Normally have to mow once a week in the spring, and it takes maybe 40 minutes from the time I open the garage door until I close it again.

When we move again it will likely be in five years and into retirement. I expect I will keep doing the yardwork myself for at least a few years into retirement, but no promises.

[J.R. Ewing]

Canceled lawn service after buying an electric mower.  I haven't been able to mow because of problems with repeated bronchitis from a genetic lung problem.  The solution was to buy a respirator mask for $25 to keep out pollen and mold spores.  Mowing the lawn is one of those tasks that is fairly satisfying.  Not looking forward to mowing in the heat of a Houston summer with a respirator on though. 

[Laura33]

Yep, use a service here.  I am not a lawn/garden person, and I'm basically allergic to the outdoors (and half of the indoors, too, but that's another post).  DH hates yard work and has zero interest in Mustachianism, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince him to do it.  We do the minimum we can get away with to not be totally out of whack with the neighborhood:  local service comes in as needed to mow and edge, c. $55 per visit for a not-quite-1 acre property.  We don't water or use pesticides or fertilizer.  Once in a blue moon we'll get some mulch. 

On the conservative side, say it runs me $250/mo. (which is high, but more likely if we start to use them more frequently for the big cleanups).  That means I need to save an extra $75K to cover eternal lawn maintenance.  Given that we have more money than time right now, it seems like a cheap way to offload something I hate to free up more time for something I enjoy more.* 

The parts we do ourselves: weeding around the beds and the 2x/yr hedge trimming.  Weeding doesn't seem to bug my allergies much; the trimming sets off my allergies a little, but not nearly as bad as mowing, and the service wants an exorbitant amount of money for that, so it's worth a couple of hours of family effort once or twice a year (although we did hire out the big fall cleanup this year since we're currently not at the house).  DH will periodically run around with Roundup and a spade to continue his personal vendetta against dandelions; he'll also periodically run a spreader over the yard with grass seed/fertilizer stuff, particularly after we've had a tough August.  We've also turned the back of the property into low-key gardening (e.g., blackberries, blueberries, fruit trees -- that last has been an epic failure so far), so there's the annual "cut the dead stuff, yank up the weeds, and tie up the new canes," which is a giant PITA but I need to do myself.  Plus harvesting, of course, but somehow picking berries doesn't feel quite as unsatisfying as cutting the lawn (one word:  pie).  ;-) 

I really, really like the idea of adding clover; we tend to get a lot of crabgrass, since it's heartier, so having something that's softer underfoot and doesn't require mowing would be awesome.  I imagine once we retire and have more time on our hands, we'll have the headspace to think about bigger changes like that.  When we moved in, the yard was basically something that looked like it had been installed 20 years before by someone who was really into yard work, then completely ignored -- there was a pergola that we literally didn't even know was there because it was so overgrown.  So our "free" time/effort since we moved in has been to reclaim areas that were completely overgrown, install a new pergola, plant berries/fruit trees, install an irrigation system to serve them (DH did that), remove/cut back trees that are dropping limbs, etc.  And there are still parts of the yard that we haven't gotten to!  I would dearly love to finish taking out more of the ugly/overgrown stuff and replace it with more low-maintenance stuff, but just don't have the headspace right now to tackle that.


*Of course, we're also FI, and I've never considered myself particularly Mustachian.

[deborah]

No lawn. 1/4 acre block with gardens and trees. SO sits there smiling every time a lawn mower starts up in the neighbourhood.

[eyesonthehorizon]

Canceled lawn service after buying an electric mower.  I haven't been able to mow because of problems with repeated bronchitis from a genetic lung problem.  The solution was to buy a respirator mask for $25 to keep out pollen and mold spores.  Mowing the lawn is one of those tasks that is fairly satisfying.  Not looking forward to mowing in the heat of a Houston summer with a respirator on though.

One of the most appealing parts of RE to me is the idea of being able to cherry pick the coolest, grayest hours to get the mowing done, with no thought to a work schedule, until I can swap more of the lawn for beds.

The closer the respirator fits to your face, paradoxically, the less smothered the humidity makes you feel compared to unprotected airways, because there's less air inside it to equalize to the marginally less humid outside air. An N95 or KN95 might offer relief from the worst days of heat & humidity since they're thin & all-filter, plus easy to find nowadays, but respirators seal best.

@Laura33 , your yard history & eventual goals both sound a lot like mine. Blackberries!! Would nut trees grow better than fruit trees there?

[Laura33]

Would nut trees grow better than fruit trees there?

IDK -- feeling kind of burned by the process ($800 on baby trees over 10 years ago, to date one identifiable piece of ripe, edible fruit), so I'm not looking to throw good money after bad.* ;-)  But there is an overgrown fig tree back there that I keep thinking of trying to reclaim. . . . 


*Could be too much shade, could be soil, could be my lack of care, could be a total black thumb.  But whatever the cause, clearly I haven't cared enough to dive in and figure it out, so no sense assuming that I'd miraculously achieve different results if I replaced the dead pear tree with a pecan.  Maybe when I'm retired and have all that extra time and brain space.  But for now at least it's pretty back there, and it's right next to a pergola with a couple of hanging chairs.  So I'm "enjoying" the trees, even if not the fruit.

[eyesonthehorizon]

Would nut trees grow better than fruit trees there?

IDK -- feeling kind of burned by the process ($800 on baby trees over 10 years ago, to date one identifiable piece of ripe, edible fruit), so I'm not looking to throw good money after bad.* ;-)  But there is an overgrown fig tree back there that I keep thinking of trying to reclaim. . . . 


*Could be too much shade, could be soil, could be my lack of care, could be a total black thumb.  But whatever the cause, clearly I haven't cared enough to dive in and figure it out, so no sense assuming that I'd miraculously achieve different results if I replaced the dead pear tree with a pecan.  Maybe when I'm retired and have all that extra time and brain space.  But for now at least it's pretty back there, and it's right next to a pergola with a couple of hanging chairs.  So I'm "enjoying" the trees, even if not the fruit.

Where I live the squirrels plant so many pecans that maintaining anywhere to walk feels like serial arboricide. I wouldn't pay for an established tree in the case of pecans, I'd just ask friends doing their gardening in grove territory to hand over five or ten of the two hundred sprouty nuts they find in the flowerbeds in an afternoon & bury them somewhere you wouldn't mind having a tree eventually. One will likely make it despite the disturbance.

If you succeed with the fig & recall this conversation, tag me into the results!! Meanwhile, enjoy the pretty pergola area. I still have a jungle I haven't reclaimed.

[Morning Glory]

Would nut trees grow better than fruit trees there?

IDK -- feeling kind of burned by the process ($800 on baby trees over 10 years ago, to date one identifiable piece of ripe, edible fruit), so I'm not looking to throw good money after bad.* ;-)  But there is an overgrown fig tree back there that I keep thinking of trying to reclaim. . . . 


*Could be too much shade, could be soil, could be my lack of care, could be a total black thumb.  But whatever the cause, clearly I haven't cared enough to dive in and figure it out, so no sense assuming that I'd miraculously achieve different results if I replaced the dead pear tree with a pecan.  Maybe when I'm retired and have all that extra time and brain space.  But for now at least it's pretty back there, and it's right next to a pergola with a couple of hanging chairs.  So I'm "enjoying" the trees, even if not the fruit.

Where I live the squirrels plant so many pecans that maintaining anywhere to walk feels like serial arboricide. I wouldn't pay for an established tree in the case of pecans, I'd just ask friends doing their gardening in grove territory to hand over five or ten of the two hundred sprouty nuts they find in the flowerbeds in an afternoon & bury them somewhere you wouldn't mind having a tree eventually. One will likely make it despite the disturbance.

If you succeed with the fig & recall this conversation, tag me into the results!! Meanwhile, enjoy the pretty pergola area. I still have a jungle I haven't reclaimed.

You might have a male fig tree. I was just looking up how to care for them yesterday because I have a few young ones that were here when we moved in, and the article mentioned that they can have separate genders with only the females bearing fruit.

https://www.southernliving.com/garden/how-to-grow-fig-trees

[obstinate]

We don't pay for lawn service, but we did back when we had a lawn. It was cheap ($100/mo), we were making mad money, and we didn't want to spend the time on the weekend to do lawn care. That was as far as it went.

Honestly, I feel better about paying for services like this than I do about typical consumptive choices, because at least I'm not emitting any incremental GHG (the guys who did our lawn were already doing a bunch of other houses on the street, and they weren't doing any more work than I'd do myself -- actually, since I didn't have to buy any of the tools, it was probably a net-negative emissions choice).

[partgypsy]

Sorry to necropost but saw this article and wanted to share. My mother did something similar. She had an area in the backyard left to nature. a shared fence fell over, and there was a dispute who should replace the fence. So the neighbor called the police on my mom saying her yard violated standards. However she had a certificate that showed it was a wildlife habitat, and nothing came of it. Basically if there ARE HOA or community laws, should try to have long view of rather than just adhering to perhaps archaic laws (monoculture grass lawn), but work to have the HOA reflect the values of the community.  https://www.thecooldown.com/green-home/rewilded-yard-maryland-hoa-rules-law/.

[rothwem]

Sorry to necropost but saw this article and wanted to share. My mother did something similar. She had an area in the backyard left to nature. a shared fence fell over, and there was a dispute who should replace the fence. So the neighbor called the police on my mom saying her yard violated standards. However she had a certificate that showed it was a wildlife habitat, and nothing came of it. Basically if there ARE HOA or community laws, should try to have long view of rather than just adhering to perhaps archaic laws (monoculture grass lawn), but work to have the HOA reflect the values of the community.  https://www.thecooldown.com/green-home/rewilded-yard-maryland-hoa-rules-law/.

Hah, that's the same town where I grew up and where my parents still live in Maryland, its an upscale DC/Baltimore suburb.  Its unincorporated, but there is a giant HOA that basically covers the whole town.  Its sounds crazy, but the big HOA actually allows for a lot of benefits, there's 26 outdoor pools, two (or three now?) big gyms, greenways and public parks everywhere, low income housing within walking distance of grocery stores, bus lines, etc, all paid for by the HOA.  Its honestly a pretty nice place to live and the HOA, while somewhat intrusive (your HVAC unit can't show from the road, need approval to change house color, etc) is cheap for what you get. 

Anyways, there's a big lawn rejection effort going on there, but the lots are so big in most neighborhoods that it just ends up turning into a clusterfuck. It ends up being less mowing but more other work (trimming mostly) to keep the property from looking abandoned.  I suspect that the issue the people in the article were running into was that their place just ended up looking derelict, rather than "wild". 

Maryland gets a ton of rain too, so the people that try to "xeriscape" just end up having their expensive rocks washed away. Its funny, Central Maryland is actually the perfect place to have a fescue lawn, its mild in the summer, gets plenty of rain and never gets terribly cold in the winter.  My dad mows a couple times a month, never waters and never puts anything on the lawn and it looks great. 

[Just Joe]

I did - but I lived on an acre in the country.  It took me forever to cut all the grass on my old lawn tractor.  The lawn service had it all done in a couple of hours, and they had zero radius turn mowers, and string trimmers, so they did a much better job as well.  I was also in my 60s at the time.

All they did was cut, no fertilizing or weed killing.  The first year I was there, there were no birds, no bees.  10 years of no pesticides and I had lots of birds, including swallows, plus honeybees and several kinds of bumblebees.

Yeah - this! Previous owner was a spray and poison man. Rather than trim the weeds, he sprayed. He left us a variety of chemicals in the barn that I quickly discarded. We have pets. Don't want them walking through poisons and then licking their paws.

Its taken several years but the insects and small animals have returned. The crickets and the frogs. We love it the night sounds. 

Our yard went from a uniform grass carpet to something full of variety, mostly green. We love that too.

I mow several acres myself. Sometimes wife and teenager help. We have several more acres that we allow to remain wooded. I don't spray anything on anything. Purely mechanical trimming (string trimmer and scissor trimmers). The shrubs around the foundation of the house are low maintenance. Clip them once a year, keep the leaves from piling up between the foundation and shrubs. Leaf blower gets most of that work done. Clean out the gutters a few times a year with an electric blower powered by the electric tractor.

I mow it all with a ~51 year old GE electric lawn tractor. Or if I feel the yard needs mulching (grinding up leaves which might prevent grass from growing) I might bring out the ~30 year old gas lawn tractor. Both were among the best of their era and purchased for pennies on the dollar compared to new equipment. Very tough old machines. Rarely needs repairs, minor occasional maintenance.

Edited for typos...

[Just Joe]

I have come to terms with the finances of it by:
- recognizing the costs of buying and servicing a mower
- recognizing that the mental time and energy used to mow - which means I have to plan out a specific day to mow (watch and worry about the weather), get the mower out, make sure blades are sharp, keep track of oil & gas, mow the lawn, get out the trimmer, fight with the trimming wire, gas/oil, finally get it started, clean up sidewalks & driveway, put equipment away, and get myself cleaned up. That is often a 3 hour process. I'll pay $45 to avoid that. I'd rather go for a walk with my dogs and/or kids and have a nice conversation.
- I don't always work during that time saved, but I certainly get $45 worth of value from having someone else do it.
- When I made less money, I did it myself. Now I make more and it feels like a reasonable trade-off.

First - you do you. But --- always a but right? --- that sounds like a big operation for little reason.

I sharpen my blades once a year. Honestly despite mowing several acres, once every other year is probably enough. I do an oil change on my gas tractor once a year or so - sometimes once every two years. I've used far less since I bought a vintage electric lawn tractor. My engines last 25+ years. More frequent oil changes won't gain me anything. Basically if the oil is still clear enough to read the markings on the dipstick, delay that oil change.

A good trimmer is usually easy to start. I have two. The Husquvarna is always easy to start. The other one is a big box retailer budget brand that I can't remember. That one can be fussy. The Husquvarna is a tool. Not as noisy either. I trim every other or every third time I cut the grass - let's say monthly.

These days I'd recommend folks with a ~1/2 acre yard look at an electric trimmer from a name brand supplier. As always don't buy a toy, buy a tool. I've used a Milwaukee electric. Shares batteries with their other powertools.

As for a grass cutter - I have used a reel mower with good results. Loved the lack of noise, ability to mow barefoot, and no 230 mph stones being thrown out the discharge. Less dust and pollen put into the air. They aren't perfect but kept sharp (sharpened once a year) I loved it on a small yard. Today I'd use a reel mower or buy an battery electric push mower for that same smallish yard.

[Just Joe]

After reading this maybe I'll spend the summer mowing lawns, looks like easy money.

Its how I paid for a part of my engineering degree. And later for spare money when we were newlyweds and paycheck to paycheck. Cheap equipment though was a problem. I eventually upgraded but the big box retailer grade lawn tractor I had was flat worn out after a couple of seasons. I made repairs and more repairs and made it last a couple more. Engine was good, transmission was still good but everything else was shot.

"It's dead Jim... Time to let it go..."

[EchoStache]

We mow our own lawn.  My young adult son still lives at home.  I pay him $40 to mow the yard, takes about 1.5 hours to push mow, weed eat, blow, etc.

Neighboring house is a rental that gets lawn service.  A three man mowing team pulled in at 5:34.  I swear to god, they pulled out at 5:41.  Maybe 1/4 acre or so, but damn!  This included getting on and off the trailer with the zero turn. 

[obstinate]

After reading this maybe I'll spend the summer mowing lawns, looks like easy money.

The guys who do this type of work full-time clear like $30-40k per year. It is hard work and like any business it has risks. But if that seems compelling to you, go for it.

[rothwem]

After reading this maybe I'll spend the summer mowing lawns, looks like easy money.

The guys who do this type of work full-time clear like $30-40k per year. It is hard work and like any business it has risks. But if that seems compelling to you, go for it.

Its pretty scalable though.  My friends Father does quite well for himself as a landscaper, but he's got ~10 crews and he's been doing it for 40 years.  ~20 years ago, he got into doing specialty landscaping, doing unusual stuff like transplanting 40 foot oak trees into rich people's lawns for $20,000 a piece, putting enormous decorative boulders in places, etc. 

He's really frugal and personable though, and knows just about everyone in town, I'm sure that helped him secure the big commercial contracts that he's got. 

[Fomerly known as something]

From 2008-2013 I used a lawn service.  I was living in a VLCOL area on an acre.  It was too big of a lawn for me to manage so I was willing to spend $120 to not have to deal with it.  Once I moved to much smaller lots, I began taking care of my own lawn.

[sonofsven]

After reading this maybe I'll spend the summer mowing lawns, looks like easy money.

The guys who do this type of work full-time clear like $30-40k per year. It is hard work and like any business it has risks. But if that seems compelling to you, go for it.

It's something I considered as a semi retirement gig.
Near me are a lot of second/vacation homes (Oregon coast) so lots of opportunity for summer work.
Mainly though I was poking fun at the folks here who pay others to take care of their yards.
I realize that for high earners it can make more sense to focus on the high earning part, not doing yard work,  but it's just a foreign concept to me.

[Laura33]

I realize that for high earners it can make more sense to focus on the high earning part, not doing yard work

Side rant here:  this particular argument ("it makes more sense for me to work and earn $XX/hr than it does for me to not work and do ABC and save $YY/hr") drives me nuts.  Because how many people would actually be out working for pay at 8 AM on Saturday if they weren't mowing the yard?  How many people take two hours of unpaid leave every Thursday because they need to get the yard mowed?  It's total self-serving crap. 

Don't want to mow?  Don't mow.  I sure as fuck don't.  But don't justify it as a net financial benefit.  Acknowledge it as a luxury that is worth the price for more free time, more time with family, saving your sanity by taking one more thing off your plate, etc.  I am at a place right now where my time is more constrained than my money, so it is worth it to me to have a guy swoop in with his team and do in 30 mins what would take me half a weekend day (yard is way too big with way too much to trim).  But the $50 or whatever I pay them is still a net financial loss, because I'm sure as hell not going to spend that half a weekend day in the office.  I'm going to be sleeping, eating a bagel, putzing on the internet or reading a book, maybe noodling over the grocery list, and wondering when I should start banging on DS's door to get his teenaged ass moving.  All of which is infinitely more fun than mowing the yard.

[LoanShark]

Simple - My time is more valuable than paying someone to do it for me.

[Archipelago]

This discussion seems akin to opinions on house cleaning service. I mowed and maintained my rental property's lawn for 5 years when I lived on the property. I hired a service when we moved out of state 2 hours away. Now I do just spring and fall cleanups on my rentals. I like getting outside and mowing. I do a better job than a service does, and I get the satisfaction of doing it + exercise.

Same thing with house cleaning. I can't really imagine not cleaning my own house. I get so much gratification and mental wellbeing cleaning it myself, it'd be hard to justify having someone else do it, let alone paying for it!

[partgypsy]

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I wanted to post this link set up by Rob Tallamy. It has a video (40 min) about the argument for returning lawns into something that can support or be part of the natural ecosystem. https://homegrownnationalpark.org/

[Goose]

I absolutely have a lawn service! 

I starting mowing as a kid in FL at 12 and kept mowing until I was 45 - about 10 years ago.

Know what I like about FU money - being able to walk away from things I don't like doing......and tending to my yard is one of them!   

I still do the one off projects around my yard and I view the hand off the repetitious mowing of the grass each week to give me the time to do those projects I do like.

[Silrossi46]

I sit in an office all day.  I do it all myself. 

[Valley of Plenty]

I have a quarter acre property. About half of that is lawn, the rest is a wooded embankment leading down to the river (I've got a set of stairs that lead down the embankment to a walking trail that runs parallel to the river).

Once a week I throw the battery in my electric pushmower and mow the lawn, which takes roughly an hour. Then I put the mower back, slap a battery in my 20v electric string trimmer, and get all the spots I can't reach with the mower (around walls, sidewalk, and the steps down to the river). That part takes me about 20 minutes. Then I put the batteries back on the chargers and go have a beer. The whole process takes about an hour and a half give or take, or about enough time to listen to two podcast episodes.

Can't relate to all this talk of chemicals, gas, oil, tool maintenance, etc... I did sharpen the blade on my mower last month (it got pretty nicked up from running over sticks and the occasional walnut), which took about 20 minutes. First time I've done that in two years of ownership.

I might consider paying someone to mow my lawn in 60 years or so once I'm no longer able bodied, assuming we don't all have self-mowing lawns or robot groundskeepers by then. ;)

[EchoStache]

I think robot mowers will become commonplace in upcoming years.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

We recently ended our yard service. The cost was going up 30%, and our yard folks just aren't here for long enough to justify the hourly rate/value exchange. I'm FIREing in September, so it felt like the right time to pick up the work. For now, my husband & I are splitting it, but we've agreed that I'll do most of the yard work, once I'm FIREd. I don't mind it. I don't feel like I have a ton of time for it at the moment, but that should get much better after I'm FIRE'd.