When it comes time to landscape your property, you have got a lot of decisions that you have to make. One of them is how much you intend to spend on maintaining the property, either in your time or your money. Another decision that you are going to be facing is in how much landscaping the neighborhood will actually warrant. While there are other concerns, such as those of legal liability, they can be addressed at another time, and are generally composed of common sense. However, when you get into the aesthetic appeal of the landscaping and the amount of time which you are willing to devote to it, there is a lot to consider in and of itself.
First off, how much time and money are you willing to put into landscaping the place? If there is just a grassy lawn, you are probably looking at $50 or so just to keep it legal if you hire out the mowing and edging. However, if you do it yourself, you might end up being out five or six hours of your time for the same degree of maintenance. If you want to go into nicer detail with it, such as setting up a lovely cross hatched pattern with your yard, it is going to take more time and thus more money.
You have also got to consider how it will look in comparison to the rest of the neighborhood. If you are attempting to rent a property in a middle to upper middle class area, the lawn is going to be a major selling feature. There is just something about a manicured lawn which says, “This place is well tended to.” But if you are working in a more blighted area, you might not even want to bother with doing much beyond keeping it legal. Often in those areas, nobody cares that much about lawns.