To a lot of people this is the idea of a utopia. Closed off neighborhood of similarly designed low quality high priced homes filled with similar designed people. Small yards overlooking your 4-6 neighbors who if you’re lucky enough share your interest in sports, golf and backyard grilling. Your kids have kids to play with and crime isn’t a concern.
I get the appeal, but not for me. My idea of hell.
A lot of people who grow up in suburbs like this end up hating them as adults because it can be incredibly isolating.
You have to hope the kids in the 6 other houses happen to be the same age and happen to have the same interests. Your kids can have plenty of friends at school, but if they live in different closed off neighborhoods instead of yours they won’t really be seeing them much unless you have the time to drive them to and from every day.
Damn, you explained my life! My siblings are 5 & 6 years younger than me, they were lucky that all the neighbour kids were similar ages. I was not. We were lucky enough that a bus came twice a day, so as a teenager I could get out, but once I could properly escape, I did. Now my parents don't understand why I don't like it there "It's such a big beautiful house in a quite neighbourhood"
Same age/interests? Damn you are greedy. Growing up in the country you just find someone within 8 years of age and figure it out. And to find them you probably have to ride your bike all over by yourself until you stumble upon another kid outside 5 miles away from your house.
It’s not about distance it’s about built environment. If you’re letting your kid bike on I95 you’re a moron. These subdivisions aren’t connected by rural roads with only a handful of cars using them.
In my case there was already a huge clique of kids in the "plan" (what it was called in my area of western PA in the 90s) that were popular and they rejected me. So much fun seeing them all constantly hanging out while I had no friends who lived nearby. Also loved being the only house to be TP-ed every halloween -_-
Believe it or not this person has chosen a lot of valuable native plants for this landscape. Several of which are very aggressive spreaders - I would have planted more and closer but in three years this will look very, very different.
As someone who is into chaos native gardening and hates neighborhoods like this, this is exactly like what my gateway was into the world of native gardening. Our HOA put in installations that looked just like this, then 2-3 years later were vibrant paradises full of pollinators, birds, and life. I think this person is on a great track and feel bad he’s getting dragged in multiple subs.
it’s like someone whose bald with a few remaining strands that they refuse to shave. would i say they have hair? sure. these are planting beds with some plants in them, a garden? idk abt that
But there are a lot of plants in the garden. There's no rule saying plants have to cover every square inch of garden? You're setting a weird arbitrary standard here
He’s got loads of native plants that will spread aggressively and get much bigger over the next few years. Judging a new planting is never a great idea. The coneflowers alone will fill in almost all the space by that fence.
Its bad — this crap with the mulch. Just look at all that mulch.
They’ve basically set themselves up for years of annoying maintenance. So underplanted — all that empty space is just a liability. Weeds will come! They will need to lay down hundreds of dollars of mulch every year until forever. Years of mulch going all over the (stupid) lawn. Years of tiny stunted plants surrounded by a sea of mulch that must be weeded and re-mulched every single year, and never gets any better because the weeding churns up soil and surfaces more weed seeds, and the mulch simultaneously stops the plants they want from self seeding as successfully. The mulch is a bandaid on a problem that stems from not understanding anything about plants. Stupid burlap bag tree too. It’s exactly the kind of “LaNdScaPiNg’ that appeals to the lowest common denominator HOA aesthetic but either costs a bunch of money each year to stay permanently bare and lifeless (and very ugly), or if the maintenance slides it ends up looking 1000% worse than if they’d just planted some nice wildflower seeds or gone with a semi managed meadow or whatever. It’s all just kind of ‘I need to fill up space an I want my yard to look neat and tidy’.
It’s a style of landscaping that means maximum money spend at Home Depot for the ugliest possible results.
Anyway sorry for ranting 😔. I see this shit everywhere. The way we do landscaping in the USA is maybe the dumbest thing in the universe.
If we replaced the farms used for corn ethanol with solar panels we'd have a massive energy surplus, even if we replaced all gas vehicles with battery electric.
The effect is even greater from replacing corn ethanol farming with nuclear power. Sure, keep half of the corn ethanol for legacy gas cars, but put in a couple nuclear plants per state/normal sized country, and you're set.
Rich families used to employ entire staffs of gardeners to maintain their grasslands, so it was a way to flaunt your wealth. Now we still do it, to imitate them. But with mechanization, your gardener staff only has to visit an hour each week rather than constantly.
Such a weird take. I grew up in a place like this and having a lawn is awesome. You have your friends over and set up a football or soccer field, volleyball net, play games, tag, etc.
I had a lawn growing up too in suburban neighborhood, unless there’s literally 0 nature around (trails/woods), a lawn is entirely unnecessary to have fun as a kid. If I was ever going directly to my friend’s properties, we’d be inside.
See, I’m not so sure about that. In our HOA, at least, all the policies were set by the original property developer (no one’s bothered to get the 67% majority needed to change anything yet). Our board hires a HOA management company to perform inspections and issue violations.
So if you receive an HOA violation, it’s not clear that anyone in the neighborhood has a problem with your yard. It’s not even clear that the HOA board has a problem with it. And yet, you still receive a violation.
Kids need more than a sad lawn. They need urban environments... where to meet other children and play... not an ugly sterile suburb devoid of anything useful.
As a kid the amount of time I spent in the empty lawn..next to zero. It’s for parents to look at. There’s nothing for kids to do. I was in the woods climbing trees.
Not big enough for gridiron/American/Canadian or Australian football. Can't play basketball. Not ideal for tennis (especialy with how low the fence is) . Can't play golf. Can't swim. Roller hockey will have to go to the street/driveway. Anything track/field related will also be in the street. Can maybe set up an archery range out there?... At most the kid will use it for wrestling his friends or something. Volleyball can maybe work if the kid is really dedicated.
Not big enough for an actual soccer game. Especially considering the kids have to be careful of the garden and fence, so they can't shoot very hard at all. So it's just a soccer drill space at most...
Volleyball or badminton would easily work grass volleyball is very popular...
Do you think kids need a full field to play football or soccer? This is the perfect amount for kids to play like 5 on 5 soccer or football. Kids dont need lineman etc.
Forgot about badminton. Volleyball I was like "eh" because indoor uses a gym and outdoor uses the beach. Gym floor lets you slide to make saves and beach has cushioney sand. But I mean you could make it work.
Ten children running in this yard playing soccer while being careful to not trample the plants or hit the fence or the house or shoot into the neighbors yard is just going to be frustrating.
Jesus Christ dude, my kid just needs to run around and kick a ball. It doesn’t have to be an official field size. You look at any park and people like to sit and play on grass.
I mean sure, but the lawn was brought up as a nice perk for kids playing to justify that much empty land. I think a kid can find a million ways to play. They'll play anywhere. Just saying that the lawn isn't particularly special or great.
Never played touch football in a back yard? I grew up in a suburb and we would have neighborhood wide games of tag, water gun fights, all sort of stuff that you could never do in an urban environment.
Why does it need that? What if the kids like to play soccer or volleyball or just run around? Big grass spaces can be useful hell I spent a big chunk of my childhood setting up cones in a backyard half this big and dribbling a ball.
Thanks for letting me know that my childhood spent playing in big yards with kids I met in my suburban neighborhood was a failure because it only counts in an urban environment.
I’m always happy for people when they like where they live, so for people who love city life that’s great.
That being said, this sub has a major hard-on for city parks. They slap it down like a coup de grâce, “Yeah, but….CITY PARKS!!!!” It really rubs some of them the wrong way when you point out that having your own outdoor space can be pretty nice. And that yard-havers can still go to a public park when they want to.
Exactly. I would not move back to the suburbs I grew up in because of the car dependency. But as a kid they were absolutely fantastic. Complaining about it from that perspective is asinine and clueless.
I really love going into cities and seeing the parks filled with... adults.
I have a large park beside my house that I visit everyday for about 40 mins to an hour (my dog is addicted to it). I often see only one or two other walkers, the place is usually empty and quite gorgeous. Right beside a large residential area too.
Meanwhile, in my home town, there is a massive revolt going on against putting sports facilities in parks. A pro hockey team wants to build a practice facility on their dime and open it up to the general public, and residents are up in arms because they don't think parks should be used for organized sports.
I'm from an area where hocky is very uncommon so I could be way off base because its not something I really see, but I'm picturing a "pro hockey practice facility" as a big building with nothing but a giant block of ice inside. In that case I can see why many wouldnt want it in their local park. Indoor basketball court would be better because you can do many other things in there other than basketball but I think outdoor is better for a park. Hockey rink you can only either play hockey or ice skate so you're wasting a huge amount of already limited park space for everyone except the few who want to ice skate or play hockey
Typically there’s several sheets of ice, a gym, an indoor track or two over the rinks (which are fantastic for running in the middle of summer), meeting space and film rooms, and other amenities like a medical clinic, restaurants, etc. The one nearish me for the St. Louis blues has a grocery store (for tournament families but also the neighborhood ), radio station, and the main rink converts into a 4500 seat concert venue for the whole summer.
There is no evidence of kids, no play set, no soccer goal, etc... also a better way for kids to play is to go to parks. Parks have playsets, basketball courts, etc.. but more importantly they have people. Backyards in replacement of parks is a huge part of our loneliness epidemic. Socializing is gone because we are replacing third places with 1rst places time which is extremely unhealthy.
Our parks are used quite a bit. I hear children squealing and see people walking their dogs all day every day. We have a pool that is very busy.
You people have a real obsession with thinking all suburbanites never leave their house and never interact. And of course, all city people are always out and about and happily talking with each other.
I don’t know where you live but I live in a suburb in Texas and we have several parks (4) within walking distance, and quite a few more within a very short drive. They are all interconnected with a series of crush granite running / biking trails crossing over creeks etc. The parks are always filled to the brim with kids. Many people host birthdays parties in the gazebos which you can reserve for a small fee. Cool thing is that when I take my kids they always run into their school friends or their teachers who may live in the same neighborhood and their kids go to the school.
Six within just the neighborhood. All walkable in less than five minutes from anywhere in the neighborhood. No one lives further than one minute from at least one of them. The neighborhood is less than 0.1 square miles with about 600 residents.
So you have 22 within a mile? A mile radius is 3.14 square miles. Using the ratio of area, we would have 963 parks in the same area, and I didn’t even include the dog parks!
.01 is 64 acres, the average household is 2.53 so that's about 237 homes at the average lot size it's 60 acres with just the homes. Then add roads and parks and it doesn't fit.
Roads usually take up 15 to 25% of land space in burbs, so go 20% and that's 12 acres.
The average park size is 3 to 20 acres, so even going the smallest possible that's 18 acres and you have dog parks on top of that?
So at minimum you have 64 acres, less roads you have 52 left, now parks and dog parks you have 24 acres left. So if you have let's say higher than average household population and 200 homes. Then . 12 acres per home? That's half the size of the average suburban home. So doesn't sound like a suburb.
Parks get a little tetchy if you do anything with stakes. I use my yard for croquet, setting up a tent, slip n slide for the kids. Also a firepit, and outdoor movies.
But the local park has tennis courts, ball fields, playgrounds, a carousel and pool.
When we still lived in the suburbs, it was nice for the kids to be able to go and play in the yard anytime they wanted to, by themselves or with neighbor kids. We would also take them to local parks. City, suburbs, or rural, kids will be as socialized as their parents give them opportunity to be.
But they don't, we have a massive loneliness epidemic and the more rural people get the worse it gets. Kids are far less socialized today and a lot of it is a lack of third places. Kids are stuck in their homes. Instead of going to theaters we have giant TVs, instead of parks we have huge yards, instead of going to community centers we have finished basements with game rooms. We have again replaced social places with non social places and it has a big negative impact on society.
Big TVs still fit in small city apartments. Regardless of where they live, kids still go around with a phone perpetually in front of their faces if their parents allow it. I don’t disagree with you that lack of third spaces can be a problem but the most critical time for socialization starts at home. If they don’t learn young, they have missed an important window. When the parents make no effort, the kids will always struggle in that department.
Too many kids now get handed an electronic device, and a plate of dino nuggets. They stay out of mom and dad’s hair so it’s assumed everything is fine. My wife is a lower elementary grade teacher and deals with these kids every day. They come in practically feral. When reports about behavior go home it’s met with a semi-accusatory, “That’s strange, they never act out at home.” Yeah, because absolutely nothing is expected of them at home.
To me, that’s the biggest problem. Engaged parents make engaged kids regardless of where they are. The non-engaged parents aren’t taking their kids to the city park where they have to watch them. At least the neglected suburban or rural kids can be told to “go play outside” with limited supervision.
At least here you have a chance to be outside. A lot of the homes going up near me are build right up to the property line. The “front” doors often open sideways into the driveway. It’s like they imagine you are either inside watching TV or getting in your car to go anywhere.
Looks solid for a dog(s). My dog would be in heaven with a yard like that, and having a fence around it means I could set up a dog door so she could come and go as she pleases. I just got woken up at 5 AM today because my dog had to shit, which wouldn't be a problem if it were something like that.
I think we have bigger problems than people having their own yards. I don't see why you need to be concerned with how it's set up, either; it seems pretty nosy and controlling. This just comes off as punching sideways.
"My steak is juicy, my lobster is perfectly buttered, but without a steak and lobster it would be boring".
In my country people leave in an apartment's that are may be considered as better than suburbs in this sub, but a lot of people here are so miss communities just as you described
I get the suburban hell part of this but also… plants have to grow. Buying and placing full grown trees is expensive. I’ve seen pictures of my dad’s garden when we moved into my child home 20 years ago and it looked like this. Now it is unrecognizable.
I'm not tracking. Are you thinking this home pictured is in California? Because otherwise, I don't get your remark in response to it being pointed out our yards in California are tiny.
I didn't even notice that it's the landscaper posting.
I was thinking about cost, and how much care young plants/new garden beds need. Even mature beds need a lot (though not as much).
I actually had to switch some garden beds
to grass at my house because I couldn't maintain them all. The previous owner was retired and spent tons of time gardening. I kept the best beds and took the others out.
Holy shit is it really that expensive in the US? I've bought 130 native plants in Europe for 3 dollars each. They were tiny in the spring but now they filled up my complete garden.
You can definitely buy seedlings for $3 each, but these are way bigger than seedlings.
Looks like 1-5 gallon natives (4-20 liters?) that can run $15 to over $50 each.
The flowering natives are going to be 2-4 year old perennials.
And there’s over 100 of them (I think about 130?) so probably $2k-$4k?
Then the trees are probably about $100 each, with the three biggest ones being closer to $300 each, so around $1500 for all ten of them.
It can be very expensive, and our natives tend to take more time to mature. Those plants are probably about 1 to 3 years old already and will take up to a year just to settle in before they begin growing and filling in. The smaller ones are $7 to $12 USD each with the flower stalks and grasses $15-20, the bushes $30, and the trees $40-$150 depending on the species. That’s easily $1,200+ on plants. Plus our natives can be sensitive to overcrowding and placement.
So we should all just build homes that are approved by you while we live through a housing crisis? It’s a privileged take to say a home is a waste of space because you don’t like the way it looks.
I'm spotting 7-12 species in every shot, which is way better than most households ever do, urban or suburban. I can't tell what all those species are, but all the ones I think I can identify are US native rather than european or asian ornamentals. Per the notes on the original post, they are 100% local pollinator friendly, so probably all native species.
Given they are natives, that looks to be around $3k-$6k worth of plants, so that might not be the final density either, just what they can afford right now. (And you have to mulch over or put down plastic in between phases, or else non-natives invasive annuals will take over quickly). A lot of those that I recognize will also be 3'-6' across when mature anyway, so the spacing might be appropriate.
They have a few trees and bushes. I can't see what the groundcover plants are, but depending on the type they could cover large parts of the empty space in time. In such exposed areas it often doesn't make sense to plant the more delicate plants in the first year.
Now the majority still is an ugly lawn, but some people just can't keep up with a large proper garden and depending on how they care for it, the planted areas could turn out nice with some love and future planting
On the other-hand it could just as easily become a sad dessert of black with a few struggeling plants in between (and somehow still seen as beautifull by some weirdos)
To be honest for what it is, it looks good. Is it for me? Hell nah. But it’s not a shitshow, there’s not any “why did they make that decision” things that pop out, it’s not tacky.
You are being biased. You need trees that give more cover, and I wouldn't suggest putting them this close to the foundation. I'd suggest planting sour cherry because it can take a lot of punishment and it gives a very good jam.
You people are such miserable fucks, the guy did a great job landscaping his home and you’re all on reddit talking about “euugfgh the lack of density” bro I am begging all of you to go outside and talk to a woman or something, this is pathetic
Honestly I screwed up. I thought I was posting to the r/landscaping sub. This post was perfectly suited for r/suburbanhell. My Mom dropped me once I think.
The thing I hate about newer developments is the lack of full grown trees. Your trees will be nice in 15 years but the rest of the neighborhood will probably still be lacking in that regard. Looks good though
The beds to the left of the garage and along the long fence in pic 5 are nice shapes. And your use of river stone looks good too, although i might have gone full rock garden with ornamental grasses in the section between the double drainage paths and the gate.
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u/drunk-tusker Jun 26 '26
Honestly they did a great job but god does that look like an absolutely boring place to exist in.