When we bought this house, it had the worst front yard on the block. I worked it over, and planted a nice (from seed) lawn. It was like a postage stamp, green and pretty, 33 feet by 16 feet.
I was traveling for work, and the wife just couldn't send the boy out to do it, and he wasn't going to do it unless he was told, so she hired the neighbor's gardener and it went to ****. He has some sort of nasty grass that made its way off the bottom of their mower into our yard. We had clumps of weeds in the back yard, which they insisted on mowing. Throwing dirt everywhere. What a bunch of clowns. I stopped traveling for business in '06 and fired them. Now the front is drought-resistant plants. Marginally better.