Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No mulch - mulch has no place in a real garden, people! It's ugly and serves no purpose.

Silliest thing I’ve ever heard.

NP here: I’m also not a fan of mulch and agree it has no place in a totally mature garden. But I find it is really helpful for areas in transition and newly planted spots.

Anonymous wrote:No mulch - mulch has no place in a real garden, people! It's ugly and serves no purpose.

Silliest thing I’ve ever heard.

We live on 0.15 acre near downtown Bethesda.
DH does everything, and occasionally gets the help of teen DS for the big jobs, from cutting down or moving trees to planting new flower or veggie seedlings that he raises first in our basement, under red light. He has a vegetable patch that gives us heirloom tomatoes and other stuff in the summer. He's a gardener, and enjoys it.

He has a full array of gardening tools, buys soil at Home Depot and orders specialty seeds and plants online. No mulch - mulch has no place in a real garden, people! It's ugly and serves no purpose.

Anonymous wrote:We have about 0.75 acres. We pay a lawn service about $3,500/year for mowing, mulching, leaf collection in the Fall, aeration, trim hedges, etc. It's a lot but has been a huge help.

That’s not bad. I get quotes at 6500 for .35 acres.

Thanks, all. It sounds like we are on par with others who outsource most of their yardwork. That said, I do feel guilty spending that much money on something we could potentially do ourselves. Maybe I'll get some motivation from the DIYers on here!

Anonymous wrote:We have about 0.75 acres. We pay a lawn service about $3,500/year for mowing, mulching, leaf collection in the Fall, aeration, trim hedges, etc. It's a lot but has been a huge help.

OP here. That's about the size of our lot and about what we spend per year but seeing the other responses makes me wonder if we could/should be doing more ourselves...

We have about 0.75 acres. We pay a lawn service about $3,500/year for mowing, mulching, leaf collection in the Fall, aeration, trim hedges, etc. It's a lot but has been a huge help.

We have a huge maintained yard (about an acre), and it's all outsourced, except the native garden I'm starting, so about 22K/year.

I have a 0.2 acre lot in Silver Spring.
I outsource mowing. The lawn guys also help me do odd jobs like spreading mulch and trimming shrubs, but they do it on the side. I spend about $2000 each year for plants, soil, mulch and outsourcing but I buy a ton of plants each year.

About $350 for my garden supplies and gas for the mower. We do it all ourselves but we don't have the nicest yard in the world. I don't care, I just want my fruit and vegetables to thrive.

Backyard is deep (40'x80'?) but uncomplicated - clover/grass yard and fruit trees/raised beds around the edges.

Front yard is small, sloped, and impossible to defeat the viny nonsense that takes over all the bushes and azaleas, so we just mow it aggressively.

I do it all myself. Prob 15 bags of mulch per hear delivered. At about $6 per bag ($90). Endless hours of pruning and mowing and leaf collection. Leaves used to cost me $500 for the season. I buy about $200 of plants a year as i enjoy gardening and always tweaking something. I have lots of plantings and little lawn. I do pay for gutters at $150 per time and twice a year.

About $2000 to maintain .45 acres. We outsource weekly lawn mowing in season, organic fertilizer treatments, and leaf collection. We handle most shrub trimming, weeding, and mulching. Sometimes we'll hire a teen to weed for a few hours here and there.

We do all of it. Few hundred for mulch, dirt, seeds, etc.

I live on Capitol Hill and have a small but big-for-the-Hill (55x20) backyard and typical postage stamp (maybe 10x20) front yard. I do all the landscaping and maintenance myself; I love it. I spent maybe 300-400 per year on plants and supplies.

…if you are in the DC metro area? Please include size of your yard. And how much do you do yourself and what do you outsource?