@Rebekah Nation

You're correct -- not one-size-fits-all.  I do like your approach - it's creative and takes advantage of the fact that you want to visit the property once per month. It's not assuming too much as a landlord either...

Younger me, if living close to a SFR, would also have mowed the lawn to check-in and keep the property nice. 40-ish me now pays for lawns to be mowed so I can focus on stuff that brings in more money than I'm paying for the lawn to be mowed. And besides, I've mowed so many lawns in my life that I just don't like to do it.

@Samantha P.

One more note -- I did have a tenant that didn't take care of the yard very well.  I lived across the country and had a PM (that didn't visit the property often).  One of my relatives who lived in the neighborhood mentioned to me that the yard looked terrible...  Since yard maintenance was clearly in the lease as the tenant responsibility, the PM contacted the tenants and gave them a short period of time to mow the grass, trim the hedges, and weed the flower beds.  They did not comply, so we sent a landscaper out and billed the tenant.  When they moved out, we ended up applying most of their security deposit to getting the yard back into good shape, but that easily could have turned out as an extra expense for us.

So, there are definitely things to consider before putting the tenant in control (as @John Warren also noted).  I've found that MOST tenants will at least do minimal upkeep on the yard.