Gardens in NoCal

We live in Japantown. And the gardens in our neighborhood show the influence of the Japanese culture with some beautifully landscaped spaces. The best example is the Buddhist temple.

The combination of textures and materials and shapes are pleasing to the eye. But not all the landscape here is as well done..... In fact, some of the "landscape" is a bit bizarre.
People seem to avoid landscapes and plantings that require any sort of maintenance. It is not uncommon to see plantings like this. The cement IS textured.... and the bush IS sculpted...... sort of. But look - no grass to mow. How practical. In fact, some home owners dispense with ALL grass -

  This saves time mowing.... and gives you more place to park - I kid you not. And can even be carried out throughout your ENTIRE backyard. How nice. And weird. This front yard does have a wall around it to separate the yard concrete from the sidewalk concrete.
But, best of all, are the street tree trimmings. When walking to and from the light rail, I pass MANY trees that look ..... well, you decide.

This is one of those poor trees at night. Pretty scary when seen in the dark. And imagine MANY of them in a row with orange street lights and long dark shadows and a bit of a wind......

Across the street from our house, the neighbor just trimmed her trees. They were so pretty and the leaves were just starting to come out - that lovely spring green. I asked Ron-who-knows-all why people do that. And the answer? Hold on....... according to Ron, SO THEY WON'T HAVE TO RAKE LEAVES. I don't get it. Why have the trees in the first place? Well, the city requires each house to have two street trees. But who wants to rake? So grow the tree and keep the branches and pesky leaves cut off. Voila!! I feel so conventional with real grass and real trees with leaves. It must be a Maine thing.