Frank, aka PCGuyIV, is back with another episode of Truthful Tuesday. The idea behind Truthful Tuesday is for us to respond to the question (or questions) Frank asks and to be 100% truthful in our responses. No glib answers, no funny business, no fibs. Just raw honesty.

For this week’s Truthful Tuesday, Frank wants to know…

How do you feel about gardening and yardwork? Do you differentiate between them or are they basically the same in your book? Are they fun activities that are more hobby than chore, or are they tasks you’d pay good money not to ever do again if you could afford it?

Truth be told, I wouldn’t know a weed from a plant. When we first moved into this house four-and-a-half years ago, the guy we bought the house from had landscaped the front yard and had a gardener come out weekly to cut the grass and maintain the trees and shrubbery.

But our side yards and our backyard, flat for about 500 feet from the back of the house until a steep drop, was clean slate. The seller had covered the ground with a black tarp, presumably to keep the weeds down. My wife and I reached out to a landscape designer to get some tips on local, drought-tolerant plants and some design ideas.

We knew we wanted to build a recirculating waterfall, so we hired a specialist who builds waterfalls to design and build it. Then we hired a landscape company to do all of the hardscaping (deck, pergola, patio, gas fire pit, soft-surface kids’ play area), and plantings (trees, bushes, plants, grass, and groundcover).

It was not cheap, but the end result, especially now that the trees and shrubbery have matured, is beatuful.

As to ongoing maintenance, we have a guy who comes out every other week to weed, trim the bushes, and care for all of the plantings. My wife and I have time to do that ourselves, but neither of us has the skills. As I said earlier, I wouldn’t know a weed from a plant.