When I was considering becoming a homeowner, I only considered buying a house with a yard for about .02 seconds.  Then I realized how much I despised mowing.  And weeding.  And pruning.  And anything else that involves any sort of flora and/or fauna.

It obviously doesn’t run in the family.

To this day, my parents keep an immaculately groomed, perfectly manicured lawn.  My dad painstakingly edges around the sidewalk.  He mows with scientific precision.  He fights grubs and moles like a general going to war.  And in the fall, my folks go outside every ten minutes to ensure the lawn remains forever leaf-free.

I live in a townhouse complex where a lawn-service company does all that for me.  I haven’t lifted a finger in 10 years, other than to point out some overgrown weeds I wanted whacked in my back yard.  It’s the best money I spend all year (other than my cleaning guy, Kenny, but that’s a whole other blog.)

My folks take an immense amount of pride in how green and luxurious their lawn is.  Wish their neighbors could say the same.  A few houses harbor scraggly, overgrown bushes and/or a patchwork lawn motif.  I know it’s the bane of my dad’s existence, but he still somehow manages to get up every morning and forge on.

On my way to work each day, I drive by a house that’s perfectly landscaped right down to the perfectly cylindrical shrubbery in the front yard.  I’ve always vowed that if I see the homeowner(s) out doing yard work I was gonna stop by and give them props.  I think that would my dad happy — given that he beams whenever someone notices the effort he puts in to maintaining Sod Shangri-la.

My front yard is currently emblazoned with an array of flowers.  Well, at least until the first freeze in a few weeks.  It’s my claim to fame.  Couldn’t care less about grass, shrubs, bushes or trees … but flowers I can handle.  It’s therapy, I guess.  And while I like the smell of freshly cut grass as much as the next person, I just don’t want to be the person responsible for it.  And the best part?  I don’t have to feign epileptic seizures like I did when I was a teenager to get out of mowing the lawn or trimming the hedges.

Lord, do I despise hedges.