A lush green lawn takes plenty of time, money, and energy to maintain, and an increasing number of homeowners are saying that it’s no longer worth it.
According to Realtor.com, Houzz conducted a survey of homeowners who finished a landscaping project within the past year. It revealed that 28 percent of respondents said they reduced the size of their lawns, and 14 percent got rid of them all together.
Plenty of new homeowners said that they decided against having a big lawn and instead chose to implement landscaping features such as garden beds, borders, shrubs, and flowers. Also, people are spending money on outdoor kitchens, arbors, gazebos, and decks.
“Homeowners want to mix it up” with different types of structures, says landscape designer Leeann Lavin of Duchess Designs in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. They add “a sense of destination, mystery, nuance, and depth. … If you just have one big, empty lawn, it’s not interesting.”