I’d have a meadow area if I lived in the right place for it. There are a couple of businesses in my town that have large open grassy areas that they maintain as wildflower meadows for the summer, I’m glad no one has a problem with them. They cut them down once a year. Most of my neighborhood is manicured to within an inch of its life, while I actually prefer something in between. Tidy but a little relaxed.

It fulfills the needs and functions exactly as intended for the two households of gardeners who live on this land, so yes it is a very personal space. Rest assured you can slap all kinds of other amenities on rural like mountain homes for any families needs. Those are not our needs.

The natural aesthetics of nature are truly a sight to behold. Aesthetics wise I win hands down. And that is my opinion after spending thirty years in more gardens than I can remember.

And yes most people would find this overwhelming. It takes a plant nerd, but taking care of the land this way is easier than you think.

I love it, it looks ideal to me. Even in my flat residential setting, Id rather have woods and fields with paths than 30,000 sq ft of mowed grass around my house. There are some seriously problematic weeds and vines on my lot though, have you dealt with any landscapes like that?

Skip my #1 nemesis when I started was the native Clematis virginiana vine. It climbs up on top of and smothers everything else. It covered almost two acres. I spent several years in early spring when the clematis first wakes up following the vines to the central crown and pulling it up. At that time of year you can walk in the meadows without leaving a season long imprint. Getting rid of that vine revealed an extraordinary existing native flora. The gardeners keep adding more to it.

Early on there was a lot of blackberry and elderberry, both rampant spreaders by underground rhizomes that got pulled, dug and cut. I do most of my editing/removal from late March to the end of May when it is still easy to walk over the meadows. There is less of that needed all the time.

The mountains where most of my clients live are infested with all kinds of problematic non-native invasives like oriental bittersweet, burning bush, wild rose and privet to name a few. Dealing with that kind of situation has to be very specific to the problem plant involved and what the goals for the land are.

No matter the situation, an annual mowing at a minimum will favor grasses and herbaceous plants over woody trees, vines and shrubs.

I should have said, "Rest assured you can slap all kinds of other amenities on rural like mountain homes for any families needs." … and still have plenty of unused land left over.

The thing is a great number of the mountain homes up here are on large acreage by history and necessity. Maintaining the land this way is a very viable landscape maintenance and design solution for these homes. A more maintained naturalistic garden surrounding the home can merge seamlessly into the curated wilder.

There is no doubt in my mind that a designer more talented than me and the right client could use these principles to world class effect and still have all the bells and whistles any home owner could desire and then some. They already do.

Frisbee not so much. It would take some mean ass power and agility to do that in these hills.

Uhhhhh...I planted Clematis virginiana from seed, but ti's been such a busy summer they are still in pots. I wonder if they're a smothering force up here. Thanks for the heads up. Will do more research before they go in the ground.

Do you have quack grass? Icky icky icky

Clematis virginiana is a really lovely vine. What it will do is root if it runs on the ground and it self sows abundantly. Make sure the vine grows up and recognize the seedlings and pull them before they get going and you can keep it under control in a more typical garden.

For whatever management reasons/how the land had been treated, when I arrived here, it thickly covered two acres of ground. This is the only place I have seen clematis do that. I've seen plenty other vines do that.

I have upwards of a dozen species of grass that live here that I would have to look up to properly identify. I don't know any of them by Quack. The one I don't like and pull I call Deer Grass, but don't know who it is at the moment.