Garden duties at SF rental

[Uwe K.]

All my "real" rental properties I have no plants etc. that I need to care much about other than mowing the lawn and waiting for the rain to do its work.

Now I am getting ready to rent out my own house for a while because I will be at another location. But I will come back to it, in a year, maybe 3 years, no concrete plans yet. But we put quite some effort in the garden and would not like the plants to die (i.e. they should get water if needed), and the place should not look like it's on planet weed.

Question: Can I ask the renter to do all that stuff? Of course, they may not do it right, that's the risk.
And if someone rents a single family, and has to care for the garden, do they possibly want to do their own thing in there? I don't want to them to rip out stuff, of course. There are some unused patches.
Would they complain about watering, because they have to pay the water bill, but they don't really reap the benefits (rather see it as more for the landlord's benefits). Would they do the weeding so it stays somewhat clean? Should I hire some outside service?

I know everything can be put in the lease and "agreed" on, I am just wondering what sound reasonable and how to go about that, so the tenant doesn't feel p.o-ed and my wife can come back to her flowers.
It's not a low-end neighborhood and we can expect middle class people with a "normal mind" (keep my fingers crossed - it's just different if it's your own house... )

Thanks.

[Steve M.]

If gardening is THAT important to you, seeing that you want to occupy the residence in the future, I would likely have someone in landscaping take care of it for you.

Its one of the only ways you can guarantee the flowers/yard/etc... will get taken care of in your absence. Would also help if you had your neighbors #'s and could check up every few months to make sure everything was infact being taken care of!

I would never "depend" on tenants to do the yardwork .... Grass is hard enough to get them to do, let alone flowers!

My $.02 cents :)