Ever since i heard of this concept i was very interested. Love the idea of planting something other than grass that takes less or no water. I think thats awesome so thanks for making these communities!
As for your lawn, we all get busy man. Stuff falls through the cracks. Dishes dont get done, laundry goes unfolded and some shrubs get a bit too long but thats ok.
Only real use ive found for an old android phone was using it as a backup alarm clock. Surprisingly kind of hard to find alarm clocks that are as good as ones on a phone.
Another good use could be gaming handheld for emulators.
Emergency backup phone thats charged up in your car? Idk dude with the way phones are locked down and the difference across them, hard to really have any use afted security updates end uness you wanna patch your own kernal.