I grew up in NYC :) We did flowers int he front "garden" and veggies in the backyard......daddy learned the hardway not to plant tomatoes and peppers out front - we never got any :)
But we spent the summers with my grandparents in Florida who had a large property with fruit trees, lots of lawn to mow, and huge flowers beds.....so I got the best of both worlds that way.
"sigh."
If it weren't raining, I'd go out and take pictures of what I call our "moonscape," aka our yard. We just moved to a townhouse down the street from the townhouse we used to live in...and the yard has been neglected for about, say, 30 years. Let me tell you -- can't fix 30 years of neglect overnight.
Because real estate is getting so expensive here, all fixer-uppers are disappearing. In fact, all the neighbors thank us for working on this particular yard, it was so bad. So far, it's a work in progress. Truly, it needs some time and money thrown at it....which don't grow on trees in our yard!
I figure current hodge-podge of mulch, random bushes should hold us while we figure out what to fix first -- electrical? Add the bathroom (to bring the grand total to 2 bathrooms? Fix the kitchen? Did I forget anything! :-)
It is convenient, though, even though a liberal bastion.
I was thinking of doing a neighborhood "contest" for landscaping ideas. The liberals love those kinds of things -- you know, the "community pulls together" type-stuff. That would be great, until they found out who we voted for in the last presidential election...we'd probably find toilet paper wrapped around our sad bushes after that....