Different strokes for different folks.

When we moved into our house, bought specifically for the steep wooded yard (old hedgerow with hawthorn, dogwood and chokecherry), one of the neighbours came over to say hello and immediately talked about how we cut down the trees, bring in fill, level it and create a nice lawn.

Some 40 years ago we bought a heavily wooded lot - white pine, black and white oak, shagbark hickory etc. We bought topsoil for where we were putting in a small lawn and the contractor wanted to bring in topsoil for the 30 feet between the lawn and the street. We declined and instead made that are into a frontyard woodland garden.

LOL. We built a really boring, "straight ahead" house in '91. No gables, no "eyebrow" windows, just a basic rectangular house. It was what we could afford.

We laid out a circular driveway and began gardening near the house. We had trees felled, stumps removed. We tried really hard to make the "yard" relate prettily to the surrounding woodlands.

Anyway, we realized about 5 years ago that no matter how hard we worked to make the house look as though it had been here for years, the reality was, if we sold it the new owners would tear it down and start over. We arrived at the understanding that we should have built the house with SCREWS instead of nails... "De-fab. construction".

:) "potential" is a personal thing.

It is a sad(IMHO)testament to our times that the most wanted valuble house is one where there is a small strip of grass around the HUGE McMansion. Maybe a tree, bush for "landscaping". Realtors do seem to feel extensive gardens are a detriment not asset. Everyone loves my wooded shade garden, but no one would want to own it. While they are watching/playing the latest sporting event I am in my garden. Leisure time, to each her own! BUT: remember this when you go to sell/move. Give your friends what you cannot take with you. My favorite sunny perenials ended up 5ft. under in the last home we sold.

I agree with you arcy, on every point.

Every "new" McMansion has a little strip of lawn, a sapling, perhaps a bed of perennials in the middle. A properly organized garden/landscaping schema offers a potential extension of the living space and needn't be regarded as an afterthought.

We're very fortunate to live on 5 acres, 1/2 acre of which is landscaped. I love bar-b-queing for my wife and children outside, working up a sweat caring for the lawn areas, and digging around our plants to remove weeds and aerate the soil. Cannot imagine an existance spent entirely indoors.

i'd be interested to know what the appraiser had in mind for the "potential". but i s'pose i can understand that some people wouldn't consider this to be a "garden". and i agree with what someone posted about protecting your plants when you leave.

--robbie--

We recently moved to the mountains of NC so we could get away from the McMansions in suburban Chicago (we sold to a developer). Now we have an acre and a half that is mostly wooded, planted with natives by the previous owner. Our house is nothing to speak about and small, but we are surrounded by beautiful trees and birds you could see only in pictures in suburban Chicago.

BTW, our old house had lots of potential because the lot was flat and had mature silver maples in the back...

Jeanne

We recently bought 7 acres of hardwoods in rural SC. In my opinion, the land has already realized its potential, and any thing I do to it will detract, not enhance that value. We will try strenuously to not disturb any more than we have to to sneak a small house in.

The last house I had, owned with my ex, was built for us on a half-acre lot in a typical development. Mostly lawn. What made it workable for me was that the back yard was not entirely cleared, and abutted 80 acres of woods.

I gradually ripped up sod in the yard, and replaced it with perennial beds. In the front, the beds were in a cottage-garden style, mostly sun-lovers because it was a western exposure, full-sun. I kept it relatively conventional there, partly out of desire not to scare the neighbors, LOL, but partly because my ex was very conventional regards landscaping and wanted it that way.

But in the back, I had enough shade to plant woodland species. I enjoyed things like watching a small flock of orioles stripping the serviceberries I'd planted in a hedge. Was really getting to be quite lovely back there. I really don't think I want to know what happened to all that after we divorced and sold the house!

When I was ripping up sod in that front lawn and planting in new beds, I had two different neighbors come over to chat. One volunteered how much he loved his lawn. Lawn, lawn, lawn. And by that, he made it clear he meant grass. You know, the thing I was getting rid of?

Another volunteered how much she despised bees, and that's why she didn't have any flowering thing in her yard. Did I like flowers? (Duh. What did it look like I was planting?) She didn't. Did she mention bees? Hated them.

What the heck does one say?? I just smiled and said noncommittal nothings, and continued doing what I was doing.

Today DW and I have 11 wooded acres, mostly mostly red oak, sugar maple and beech, but also a scattering of ash, cherry, and various birches. We get wild turkeys in the front yard frequently. Deer too, alas for the gardens -- might need to use electric fence around what I want to keep?

We cleared only enough to get the house in. It's surrounded by conservation land and state forest. I'll eventually have a very small, likely 300 square-foot or less, lawn in back. And a vegetable garden in front. But mostly I'm planting the clearing in woodland perennials, ferns, shrubs, etc. Trying to favor regional species whenever possible, but I'm not above using well-behaved decoratives like hostas either.

We have a great deal of stone on the property, and I'm doing my best to work with that. The existing stone walls and just plain boulders are amazingly lovely, crusted over with lichens and mosses. I'm midway into building ~ 130 feet of dry-stack stone retaining wall to sweep around the house, with a smaller second level above that, and a shade garden planted on the narrow terrace between the two. The plantings I have there are buried under fallen leaves now. It's starting to really look like it's been there for decades already!

Whereas, after we built, right down the street from us two new houses went in. They cleared very large yards out multi-acre lots, which are now flat, boring grass lawns without a stick of shrubbery except some canonical arbovitae against the foundations. Just don't understand what attracts people with those preferences, to places like our very wooded, quaint New England street??

--Steve