fishing. does your yard suffer?

[Darth-Baiter]

hahaha..you know the old joke/adage...you can recognize a bass fisherman from their neglected yard.  (something like that)

 

yesterday we had a beautiful day.  i jogged with my dog.  i stopped to let him peeeee... as he was soaking a plant, i looked at said plant and thought to myself.  "hey, i have that same decorative grass in my yard (AND)  IS THAT HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK?!!!".  this one was manicured.  mine look like butt.  dead blades, leaned over, over grown.   i jogged home.  

 

before my shower, i wash all our cars.  the entire time, i was eyeballing my nasty fancy grass plants.  soo..i took a pair of hand shears/loppers and take a test cut.  it didnt resist much, so i just crawled into the grasses and i went to town.  that tiny project ballooned!!  i managed to fill a green bin.  i had to climb into it to jump it down so i could fit more!!  my wife came out wondering what happened to me.  she backed off silently before i roped her in.  hahaha..i saw her from the corner of my eye.  (she did bring me ice water).

 

WOW!!  i am still tired.  a good tired.  muscles sore.  abs sore.  i walk funny.   but my yard does look a little bit less "bass fisherman chic".   and i think i earned enough brownie points for a fishing overnighter.!!

 

oh, it then rained on my clean cars.  not my wifes's which was in the garage.  but my efforts on my trucks was a lesson in futility.  

[slowworm]

Guilty as charged!  

 

I do hire a lawn service to cut the lawn, but that started because my allergies have gotten worse as I got older, before I had my kayak or my boat.  I money I pay to have the grass cut is worth it to save the misery of allergies.

[padlin]

Not me, I’m retired. I do the yard work on crappy days or better yet, weekends. I leave weekend fishing to the worker bees, I much prefer the quiet of the weekdays.

[IYAOYAS]

I live in the woods literally on the side of a mountain. I have no yard. If you don't have a yard it can't look unkempt.

[A-Jay]

No.

I could not enjoy my time on the water

if my property was trashed.  I prefer to pull up to my place and be proud of the way it looks. Reality is, it's not much, but it's well kept. 

Sometimes I have help.

A-Jay

[JHoss]

I didn't fish or hunt from Jan 4th until March 15th this year because I had to get some major yard maintenance projects done before the tournament season started. I'll enjoy the routine yard mowings and maintenance for a couple months before I get sick of losing a couple hours every Sunday to it. On the plus side, I ordered a nice 30 ton log splitter today so getting through those log piles in the backyard shouldn't cut into my fishing as much. 

[Jar11591]

My yard isn’t pristine, but it isn’t in disrepair either. I’m a landscaper by trade, but recently I’ve been appreciating more of the natural or at least “nature-inspired” look. That doesn’t mean there is trash or furniture or broken down cars in my yard or the grass isn’t mowed. But if there are some dandelions, hey good for the pollinators. Some leaves? Eh they’ll decompose and be good for the earth. I now favor brown mulch instead of the sterile looking black mulch. Grass is only the color of how much rain we’ve been getting. The main thing is we try to be is as chemical-free as possible. 
 

Now my back patio is a different story. When my girlfriend and I bought our house a few years ago, the backyard was in bad shape and had an ugly above ground pool smack dab in the middle. I took down the pool and turned the yard into a nice stone patio and garden area. That’s what gets all my attention. I put so many hours and calories into that project, I gotta maintain it. That’s where we spend the majority of our time outside anyway. 

[Darth-Baiter]

2 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

My yard isn’t pristine, but it isn’t in disrepair either. 

this is actually me.  i installed drought resistant stuff.  no lawn, but landscaped.   i have no weeds, which is pretty much my datum for yard care.  

[A-Jay]

6 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

recently I’ve been appreciating more of the natural or at least “nature-inspired” look.

There's some of that in our side yard.

We call it our European Meadow.

A-Jay

[TnRiver46]

I love mowing 

[Bankbeater]

Nope.  I'll go fishing in the morning and do the yard when I get home.

[Craig P]

I am always up to date on the yard work.  One of the perks of working for yourself. I “make” time so I can make time to go fishing!

[gim]

3 hours ago, A-Jay said:

I could not enjoy my time on the water

if my property was trashed.  I prefer to pull up to my place and be proud of the way it looks. Reality is, it's not much, but it's well kept. 

 

I'm with @A-Jay here.  I try to take some pride in the way my property looks.  Quite often you can tell a lot about a person by the way they upkeep their property.  Bear in mind that some parts of the country receive more rain and/or heat/drought than others, so a lush, green lawn may not be very practical.  I think the OP is in California so a more "desert style" landscape would be more appropriate there.

 

 

[padlin]

Once summer hits and the rivers drop we’re not allowed to water but a few hours one day a week, ends any hope of a nice lawn. Wish I had back all the $ I put into it.

[Columbia Craw]

6 hours ago, A-Jay said:

No.

I could not enjoy my time on the water

if my property was trashed.  I prefer to pull up to my place and be proud of the way it looks. Reality is, it's not much, but it's well kept. 

Sometimes I have help.

A-Jay

My man!  Someone who likes hostas.  

[A-Jay]

3 minutes ago, Columbia Craw said:

My man!  Someone who likes hostas.  

One of the very few decorative plants the deer and rabbits don't eat right to the ground. 

A-Jay

[Choporoz]

NC deer aren't so picky.  They do have varietal preferences, though.  The variegated ones get eaten last.  

 

I've lived much of my life in more or less suburban-ish communities where I felt yard maintenance was important. 

   

    Only my 3rd year in much more rural environment and really enjoy having options to from full on natural to manicured lawn or garden.  Depends where an area is in relation to house, and mostly how I feel this month.

  I'm retired now, so even fishing daily, lawn and garden get some attention - especially gardens right now

[Catt]

Nope!

 

4 sons, 3 grandsons, & a son-in-law 

 

My oldest brother has the green thumb not me!

 

[Junger]

My two boys do the mowing, edging, and picking up sticks/debris. They're not professionals, and my yard reflects it, but they get better every season and they're learning work ethic and that's what matters to me.

[Mobasser]

My wife loves to mow so she usually takes care of the mowing. My job is to pick up sticks and run the weed eater.

[Choporoz]

38 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

My wife loves to mow so she usually takes care of the mowing.

Same.  It is a difficult adjustment, as I tend to think of it as my responsibility 

[Bird]

I live in the mountains with a very small yard.

Takes less than an hour to weed eat and push mow so never behind with that.

I simply don't like being behind on any obligation, just the way I'm wired.

Being that I'm retired, I have no excuses. 

[Tackleholic]

Priorities, in order : my Border Collie, fishing, preparing for fishing, the gym, yardwork.  I have three very steep, rocky, and uneven acres overlooking the lake and my dedication to yardwork often makes my home appear to be abandoned.  Dandelions are flowers and long grass creates a natural environment.  My 60 inch Bad Boy mower, Stihl trimmer and Stihl blower require less maintenance when seldom used.

[Swamp Girl]

My property came with a pretty big yard and ever since I bought it, I have been eliminating grass. My garden is a winter garden. I built it to be beautiful in the winter, which I achieved with a LOT of evergreens, punctuated by red-barked, yellow-barked, and exfoliating-barded bushes and trees. It has a lot of boulders too because they're abundant in Maine.

 

I built three flowerbeds abutting the house, all lined with granite cobbles. I also built three, freestanding mounded beds. One has a mass of red twig dogwoods and another has a mass of yellow twig dogwoods. Both give me winter color. I'm building a fire pit right now and hope to finish my Japanese garden this spring.

 

My Japanese garden is my yard's best feature. My first garden won Best of Show in my city. My second was featured in a magazine. My Japanese garden is the culmination of all I learned building the first two gardens. I'm close to finishing. I need to build a red slate patio and add a few more plants, but the skeleton is already there and it's good.

 

I also have seven, high raised beds and just planted asparagus in one. Two have red raspberries. One has black raspberries. One has low bush blueberries. And two have tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers.

 

Paperbark maples line my driveway and I have a double line of Green Giant thujas lining the road.

 

I'm also in the process of planting a line of high bush blueberries. Their leaves will be orange and red in the fall and backdropped by the green thujas, that color combination will really pop. 

 

In the end, I want just enough grass to rest the eye, but grass for a gardener is a dead zone that doesn't support life. A garden buzzes with bees and birds. A lawn is silent. I sometimes look out the window and see 80 Goldfinches, as well as Robins, Bluebirds, Chickadees, Mourning doves, Hairy and Downy woodpeckers, turkeys, crows, gray squirrels, ground squirrels, red squirrels, etc. It's busy out there because my garden supports them.

 

Finally, I have a dozen Japanese maples, which might seem like overkill, but my last property had 82. I also have an abundance of blue evergreens, like tree form junipers and various spruces, both tree and bush form. They thrive in my garden's climate, so I keep buying more. 

[Jar11591]

11 hours ago, A-Jay said:

One of the very few decorative plants the deer and rabbits don't eat right to the ground. 

A-Jay

Oh man the deer around here leave no hosta uneaten! We started calling them deer-feed. Every hosta in the neighborhood is nibbled down to the dirt.