This may seem a bit snide, since people tend to have a notion that grass is an easy, low maintenance solution for covering lots of ground.
Untended lawn can raise as much neighborhood ire as a field of weeds.
But a well-tended lawn is not a carefree lawn. Caring for a nice lawn can easily take more time than a rose bed. The history of closely cut lawns is fairly recent, an imported fad from the country estates of England. In ancient and classical gardens, grassy plots were sprinkled with flowers, more like meadows. Up until the 1800's, grassy spaces were mown once or twice a year.