We live on 1/4 acre lots, and it takes a crew of about 4 guys an entire day to clean up bed, trim bushes and plant and mulch. It always looks better than when the homeowner does it. I think it’s $1000 well spent.

Anonymous wrote:I live in Bethesda and see crews after crew of people doing spring cleanups. It’s not easy work, but I’m surprised people don’t just enjoy the weather and do some of it themselves? My guess is people are spending between 200-1000 on these cleanups, and that’s a lot of money heading tomorrow spring break!

On the flip side, I did see a lot of more “normal”’people at our local Home Depot who were buying supplies to do it themselves. Just think maybe I’m too cheap or poor to pay that much for spring cleaning!

I also thing gardening is a “slow” process if you do it by yourself and are trying to do it well, but people get impatient and just get these crews to clean up and stick in a bunch of annuals. It looks nice on the estate homes, but seems a little bit overkill on the normal homes, and it’s so expensive!

If you are doing this type of “expensive landscaping”, help me understand your perspective.

I have zero interest in doing yard work.

I don't do it because I'm not good at it.
I did it myself a couple of times but my yard looked crappy compared to other in the neighborhood.
Now I am hiring a landscaper to do the job and it looks so beautiful.

My husband works very long hours and only gets weekends to decompress. My job is more flexible but I have a bad back and I cannot lift heavy bags of mulch.
The guys we hire work much faster and more efficiently than we could ever hope to, and their work looks much nicer. It gets done in a couple of days instead of the weeks it would take me chipping away at it. And I'd frankly rather spend that time with my family and dogs.

If I enjoyed doing it, I would do it, but I don't so I pay and spend the time doing things I would rather do - simple as that.

It takes me 7 yards of mulch and 8 hours of my time to mulch my yard. The mulch costs around $200 delivered. For $550 I can have a company do it. And for another $100 they’ll trim the bushes and clean out all the beds. Every year I weight the cost/ benefit. Is it worth $350 (or $450) net to have someone else do it for me. There are years I pay and years I do it myself, depending on what I have going on.

We don't pay for many service but we do for gutters and a spring clean up of the yard. We mow ourselves and prune when needed after the clean up. Our yard is nor large but has alot in it. It is about 2k a year in Rockville. We all make choices on our money and time.

For me it's as simple as I hate gardening with a passion. But I like having a pretty yard and garden. So I pay someone to do it because I can afford it.

I'm not even in Bethesda and I pay for spring clean up. They pick up all sticks, blow the yard clean and take away all debris. And edge the beds and mulching. It's a lot of work on almost 1/2 acre with a ton of trees. I'll take my time and do the fun things like planting and pruning. Oh and they do gutters. We have 2 kids and Dh and I rather take them to the park or plant a garden then clean up the yard. Before kids we did it ourselves and it took the whole weekend.

I haven't paid for landscaping or lawn care but I would consider it. We have two demanding kids, two full time jobs and my husband's job often requires him to work nights and weekends. We have more time than money right now.

I am interested in gardening and have big plans when my kids are older.

Wow, OP, aren't you judgy. We did our own yard work until I had a difficult pregnancy and DH was ill the same summer. For $2k our landscapers do everything 9 months a year, including cleaning out our gutters 2x a year. Our property looked so much nicer with the landscapes than it ever did with us putting in 5 to 10 hours most weekends.

We still care for the landscapinfg our small rental property on our own. But with 2 ft demanding jobs, 2 kids (one with special needs), aand 3 sets of aging parents who need help, spending hours gardening isn't practical. We do small projects in our yard. But we are still outside enjoying the weather most of the weekend. $2k a year is totally worth it to not have to worry about HAVING to mow etc. Because some weeks our lives are too full of family care obligations.

If you have time and enjoy spending your time that way, good for you. MYOB about what others do. I have no problem helping provide jobs to others in the community.

Ditto. My DH and I work FT and spend most of our weekend hours getting groceries, housecleaning, cooking, and ferrying kids to activities. I would love to do my own yard but don't have the time needed to do it well. We want to enjoy our beautiful yard in our limited down time hours - not mulch, prune, trim, etc. But when we retire, first thing we'll cancel is landscaping.

We have four young kids. While my husband would rather be outside doing this himself and I would rather save the money, we just don’t have the time.

OP here *heading into

I live in Bethesda and see crews after crew of people doing spring cleanups. It’s not easy work, but I’m surprised people don’t just enjoy the weather and do some of it themselves? My guess is people are spending between 200-1000 on these cleanups, and that’s a lot of money heading tomorrow spring break!

On the flip side, I did see a lot of more “normal”’people at our local Home Depot who were buying supplies to do it themselves. Just think maybe I’m too cheap or poor to pay that much for spring cleaning!

I also thing gardening is a “slow” process if you do it by yourself and are trying to do it well, but people get impatient and just get these crews to clean up and stick in a bunch of annuals. It looks nice on the estate homes, but seems a little bit overkill on the normal homes, and it’s so expensive!

If you are doing this type of “expensive landscaping”, help me understand your perspective.