It seems with the amount of money spent on building these houses, that getting the lawn done right wouldnt be a big deal for the builder. If some of these builders would strike a deal with local landscaping companies they could get it done pretty cheaply, considering volume of business created.

yes joel, quiet a shift you pretty much have it one mate, yes a shift in lifestyle to a degree definately a shift in location, but not a shift in the philosophies i aspire. yes i will in all aspects adhere to what i suggest recommend to others, no i can't change the mcmansion manicured lawn set, yes the lawn on our place won't look that manicured it won't get any watering from us nor will it get any other man made or chemical application. as we are on a corner block the footpath represents app' the same area of available lawn space, so we will be planting the footpath with habitat trees as mauch as we can, that will minimise that grass area to a small degree, however there will not be much lawn in the yard, the yard will be utilised for those supplementry type activities (i find terms like sustainability and self-sufficiency don't carry any attributes to attract the masses it is like "tooth fairy" stuff isn't it, and sad to say with the undercurrent of making dollars in the permy' sector that word to is now being rejected by the lack of following building in the simple terms of it). so we need vege' gardens and as much room as possible for food trees as well as some of the more exotic natives especially to create atmosphere around the pool/patio area, where we will pretty much live in the summer time. at present (this could be modified) we are wanting to put in two 5,400 (24,500 ltr) imp' gallon water tanks, they will take up app' 14.2 sq/mtrs of space. the tank size could yet be settled back to the 3,200 imp' gal' (14,300 ltr) size, city administrators think that a tank in a garden looks uglier than most garden sheds but you can put as large a free standing garden shed as you like where you like, not so when it comes to water conservation, silly hey?? but yes i am still very much critical of what we humans are doing in the name of providing accomodation, in these new suburbs now the ruling bird is the crow (in my opinion not native but so out of control the officials don't want to deal with it) and the indian myna(h) ferel. so we have new generations of children who if they don't get to go to an expensive tourist attracting nature park/zoo/circus will never know that we have more birds than the 2 afore mentioned species winging our skies. where we are is close to some nature reserve so at least i can attract some of a small variety of resident good birds. there are no frogs but we can change that. still after spending many months living in a newer sub-division than that where we currently are there is no likleyhood that i can see of this mythical but wonderful shed-culture that existed in the 'burb's way back in the 40's & 50's and in rural up to about the 80's, but i would welcome it with open arms. and as our 2 car garage will be converted to a games room for the pool table and an area for tall tales and fishing stories we may well attract some of the neigbourhood hey? of course in today's world of litigation they will have to sign a waver won't they?? one neighbour has come over and introduced himself as i will when i catch site of other neighbours in their gardens, certainly want to be friendly at least. and our quicky vege' garden has already been a trail blazer though it hasn't attracted any looks from neighbours so far. and where the yuppy standard for water conservation is a tank of less than 1,000 litre capacity (no enough to brush your teeth with hey chuckle) our tank(s) will reset the goal posts. please excuse the typo's len

Newhomebuilder, I find this thread fascinating, too! And to think for the longest time I never opened it because I thought it was something I would not be interested in. Judiegal, God Bless you and your large, wonderful family. I think it is just lovely. This coming from someone who is an only child and has no children...and I don't particularly even care for hubby's family. HA! I've many times wished I were Italian....if only for the pasta. HA again! And can I just say...to the real point here, good grief at all those tomato plants!!! And oh, oh...the canned ones. A thing of beauty to behold. My beloved father lived to 92 years of age enjoying his vegetable gardening. He couldn't do it the last two to three years of his life as he lost his sight, but in his 80's he had just as many tomatoes and such as you that he loved and cared for. His favorite was the Super Fantastic tomato. Me, at the present, I have three tomato plants and think I'm doing good to take care of them. Thank you so much for sharing your pictures...enjoyable indeed! pup

At this point it's hearsay and that's all. Even if it weren't, consider that in residential sections, an unusual expanse of ground with no building on it is a potential home site. That thought should occur to any buyer as a part of the buying process as it's the normal course of events. Assuming a home does go there, that doesn't automatically make it some sort of irreparable fault, even if you'd prefer not to have somebody living near-by. If it were some sort of prospective zone change, or code variance it might be a different situation. Everybody has their own zone of comfort when it comes to privacy. It's a pretty common situation in new developments to have none, zero and zilch. I don't expect if you were buying into a new housing site the builder would feel obliged to state the obvious, that you might be able to lean out your bedroom window and spit into the folk's next door's. ;-) Caveat.........not a legal opinion by any stretch. But, I've looked at a lot of homes in my life, and I have always, always ? who owns an adjacent empty lot and if it wasn't the selling party then understood the obvious and not having that possibility handed to me on a silver platter. Anyway..........if a prospective buyer would ask a selling agent about it, the selling agent would probably be truthful to the extent of their awareness. That's part of what they're being paid for, to handle a situation properly a seller might find awkward. No?