Anonymous wrote:A big factor is the workplace obviously trending away from manual labor and a general lack of skills outside the workplace. Yes, a lot of white collar jobs can be demanding, but it's not the same thing as busting your ass all day pulling an engine out of a car on a 100 degree day or digging a ditch. Older generations tend to be more self sufficient than millennials. It also bothers me to pay someone to do something that I can do myself, but to each their own.

Older generations outsource their yard maintenance too especially in affluent suburbs overtaken by the $$$ new construction. When affluent neighbors arrive and have plenty of disposable income to maintain and create immaculate landscapes, standards go up, and your "skills" are no longer sufficient to maintain your house "properly". You can still dodge county penalties with a cra** looking yard as long as your grass isn't knee high and nobody will penalize you for dead grass, bushes, weeds, vines and other invasives (hello, stillgrass), debris cluttering your landscape. If these are the standards then sure, it's easy enough to occasionally mow and maintain it. It's what we do after all as my DH is too cheap to pay for any type of landscaping. And it gets to the point eventually when a lot of things need to be simply redone and costs for this are very hard to afford.

Eventually DYI catches up with you as conditions deteriorate and need a lot more than mowing to make things look well maintained. And if you happen to end up in a neighborhood with rising level of wealth you will be silently held to higher standards and also will struggle having to pay higher prices landscapers tend to charge in areas that look affluent.

Anonymous wrote:My clients opt for spring clean ups because my crews do an amazing job that sets their yards to look great all summer. And our average cost is around $2200-$3400 for 7500sf lots (majority of our work close in MD suburbs and NW) Annuals and container extra. Unlike most clean ups-we’ll remove old mulch, amend soil, grade if necessary to fix drainage issues. I have our maintenance crews booked through mid-May. Our clients like gorgeous yards and while some like to garden-they’ll pay us to have it all done in one day.

I pay $1,000 for half and acre in Potomac for spring clean up. Then again my guy has customers not clients