I loathe yard work - mowing and such. And the traditional lawn grasses are not exactly native to this area. If you want a nice lawn here, it is going to be expensive and very labor intensive. So the area inside our yard is xeroscaped. Nice trees, bushes, etc, but it's all stuff that's native to this area, so it requires nothing. I have a guy who comes out and sprays a pre-emergent. Harmless to the stuff we want, and harmless to the dogs. But works extremely well. If anything green pops up the rest of the year, they come back free. There's about 1.5 acres outside the yard that we just let grow naturally. Got a guy who brings his tractor out and chops it down once a year.