Hear, hear. A couple of years ago, I was at our botanic gardens’ annual plant sale, happily picking up pots of violets. A woman looked at the pots and said “you know those will take over your lawn.” (The disgusted sneer doesn’t translate to text, but I’m sure that you can fill it in for yourself.) She was kind of confused when I smiled and replied “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
It’s even worse if you’re in base housing. When my family was living on Mather AFB, I was introduced to the “Lawn of the Week/Month/Year”. As with most such things military, there were separate awards for enlisted and officers. We lived in Officer’s Country, but all that meant was that a mere second luuie like my Dad was expected to keep to the same standards as the brass.
Back during the height of 80s Cold War Paranoia, lawn services couldn’t get clearance for base access, so that meant that the officer and (usually his) family were in charge of keeping the lawn within regs. And no getting creative; a few flowers around the door (preferrably in pots) – from a list of allowed plants – was about all that you could get away with.
When Dad got transferred to Peterson in Colorado Springs, we couldn’t get base housing. All of a sudden, the mowing and watering got a whole lot less onerous. It was delightful!