When I bought a place in the LA area, the house had neatly trimmed lawns and flowers planted with perfect spacing around the borders in both the front and back

When I bought a place in the LA area, the house had neatly trimmed lawns and flowers planted with perfect spacing around the borders in both the front and back yards. Over the past twenty years, it's been converted into a wild, exuberant mix of flowers, fruit trees, and native plants. We do irrigate with drip-lines. We have a lot of butterfly host plants, and it is now a veritable Disney-film-happy-place filled with birds and bees and butterflies (and aphids and spiders and salamanders). There are a few chairs and benches scattered around, and I sit outside and read or code on pleasant days. I spend a lot of time taking macro photos of bugs and flowers. Several of our neighbors loathe us, saying that our yard is a mess and lowers property values. Their pesticide-ridden lawns are perfectly green, even in the Summer, and they are only ever outside to instruct their gardeners where to direct the leaf blowers. Most people walking by are enchanted by the wildness and the animal life. Kids, particularly, are thrilled when they see the butterflies, or get to pick cherry-tomatoes or berries off the vines.