Yearly landscape costs - who pays landlord or tenant?

[Dawn Wilkins]

Have an out of state single family home in Tennessee. There is HOA but each homeowner is responsible for their own maintenance. My lease agreement states that tenants are responsible for outside landscape maintenance ( cutting, weeding, leaves). They can put flowers in if they want. Question: The beds all have mulch which wears down, which leads to weeds, which tenants get behind, HOA calls ect. Does that come under maintenance or should I just bite the bullet and have a landscape company come in once a year and "open the beds" so to say, weed and re-mulch?

[Tanya F.]

When we advertise our properties, we state that we prefer tenants who like to garden. Those have turned out to be great tenants in other ways, too. They care about the property and take good care of it.