I'm visiting some friends in Colorado this week. I would have written today's article sooner, but I was busy shoveling! Fort Collins got another 4 inches of the white stuff (and yes, it IS April 30th as I write this!). Turns out Colorado's weather is just as persnickety as New Hampshire. That said, I love the snow and it will be more seasonable soon enough. I mention the weather because last weekend I was out trimming some wayward bushes and mowing the lawn.

One of my favorite things to do in the spring, as you may have assumed, is tidying up the yard. As I was mowing and raking I was reminded of a parable I heard eons ago. The gist of it was that god had provided us with plants that could grow in almost any soil, provided food for us and other animals and needed no maintenance. In response, we humans poisoned those plants in favor of a lush green lawn. We pay to kill the other plants. We pay to trim the clippings from the grass. And then we pay to water our lawns so it will grow nicer so we can pay more to throw those clippings away. For an intelligent species, we're really pretty dumb.Today I'd like to turn the tables on your manicured lawn and explore a few options that will reduce your workload on the weekends, add some creativity and pizazz to your yard and maybe even feed a bee or two to keep your local farmer's crops ...cropping? (I'm going with it!)

At the end of the day, we're simply looking to reduce the size of the lawn itself and replace it with something that doesn't look like an abandoned lot. At my house over in Lincoln, I never touched the yard and it looked like the side of the highway. It was nothing but tall weeds and grass in big patches. I rented a weed wacker with a blade at one point and that helped a bit. In the end, I was more interested in going hiking than I was with messing with the yard. I don't regret it one bit!

I recommend starting close to the house and working your way out. A simple solution for that is adding bushes or shrubs directly next to the perimeter of the home. You can be very generous here with the area around the shrubs. Depending on the size of the plant (when it is full grown) you can go 5 to 10 feet from the foundation with mulch, rocks or any other creative surface. Be sure to acknowledge the full span of the plant when it will be full grown.

At my brother's house, over in Utah, their home is surrounded by a sidewalk on 2 sides. Between the sidewalk and the road is a patch of (what once was) grass and they are responsible for maintaining that area. Rather than deal with the grass, he ripped it all up and put sections of rock and mulch in the entire area. Now he doesn't have to water, feed or mow it and it is one less section he needs to think about.

Moving out beyond the area directly surrounding the home, we get to the driveway. Regardless of the material your driveway is made of, the sides of this area are another great spot to expand into hardscaping. Depending on your budget (and skillset/patience) this is a great spot for installing pavers. You can make a design if you want or just grab large square ones and stretch out a few feet from the drive. This really helps dress up a dirt driveway and adds a nice accent to a paved one. You can also use rocks and mulch in this area. If you want to continue "gilding the lily", add some flowers or shrubs too!

"Replacing grass with hardscaping not only immensely benefits the environment but it helps with the resale of the home," notes Badger Peabody & Smith Realty (formerly Badger Realty) agent, Ralph Cronin. "Most of today's buyers appreciate the creative use of yard and frankly don't want to spend their weekends behind a lawnmower," he continued.

Most of us can't afford to install a huge water fountain in the middle of our yards (not to mention how ridiculous that may look). But one thing we can do is make better use of the existing bushes and trees we have. I recommend surrounding those larger plants with the same material you used around the home. You can expand out beyond a tree the same 5 to 10 feet you did from before. You can also intersperse some smaller flowers in this area to soften the look a bit and provide some food for our bee friends.

Lastly, and this one is a bit of an investment in time, is to plant some more trees. You won't be installing a tire swing this summer, but getting those trees planted now is going to be the best idea. There's no time like the present! Keep in mind how large the top canopy will eventually be as well as the surrounding area that you will be adding your rocks and/or mulch. This helps you plan the spacing and placing of them so you're not regretting it 15 years from now. Talk to your local "tree people" to get some ideas on the best trees for your soil and for our temperate zone. Follow that up with pictures! It will be fun to see the progression as the years roll by.

The main lesson here is you don't need to be a sheep when it comes to your lawn. Malvina Reynolds' song "Little Boxes" sums this notion up quite nicely. Give it a listen if you haven't heard it. Step outside the "norm" you are shown on the commercials on TV and the flyers you get in the mail. As I keep saying: "Let your freak flag fly"! Get creative and give yourself more time every weekend to enjoy living in New Hampshire. You don't have to mow the mountains!