By Danielle Holley, Hearn & Fleener
Thoughts About the Visible Vegetable Garden Rule
Being an avid flower and vegetable gardener – and not shy to talk about it – I’ve heard from a few friends at the law firms wondering what regulations around “visible” vegetable gardens could look like. I’ll tell you, I do not mind the change. Also, I see why it causes concern for aesthetically-minded community architectural or landscape committees and the management infrastructure that has to enforce their decisions. This essay is more “thoughts for consideration” than actionable solutions, but I’d love to hear from anyone who has an opinion!
The new law, effective August 2023, includes a provision stating an association “may not prohibit vegetable gardens in the front, back, or side yard of a unit owner's property” within single family home communities. I’m calling them “visible gardens” because “front, back and side yard gardens” feels clunky. And honestly, most of us are only worried about the visible areas of another person’s home.
My first thought is that August is great! The best time to install a new garden is in autumn so you can wake up one spring morning and do the fun part: planting. That said, it doesn’t leave much turnaround time for an association with opinions about this practice.
While a covenant community may not prohibit the choice to install a garden, implied language is that an association may regulate visible gardens without prohibiting them. How might that look? Start with the vegetable garden definition. SB 178 defines a garden as “a plot of ground or an elevated soil bed in which pollinator plants, flowers, or vegetables or herbs, fruits, leafy greens, or other edible plants are cultivated.”
What is that not? The definition does not expressly permit greenhouses, an orchard, bee-keeping, re-wilding/meadows/use of the whole lot, compost piles, scarecrows, neglected lawns, or marijuana plants (a whole different law). It also does not grant owners permission to do whatever they please. They are simply allowed to have a visible garden plot.
Senate Bill 178 was written and passed with intent that the law “removes barriers to water-wise landscaping practices in community associations”. Through that lens and as citizens of the American West – a desert! – I hope most of us engage this process in the spirit of saving water. As professionals working with community associations, we can work to meet association homeowners where they are on their water-saving journeys and how they wish to participate in visible gardening. A lot of them will not care or listen. And a few are about to have a crisis of passion.
An example being my own community built in 1962. My neighbors and I have wildly different views on how our front yards should appear, but we all seem to care:
The woman across the street spends hours in her front yard where she harvests a multitude of flowers and vegetables each season, but it is not pretty. Components of it are stunning, but the overall effect is somewhat unfortunate looking with old pantyhose used to train vines along her front walkway.
- Is the association open to an entire lawn being a garden?
- What kinds of structures will be welcomed? There will likely be plant supports and hail guards, season extenders, tomato cages, squirrel deterrents…
A man next door to her has planted fruit trees and built hügelkultur berms lined with rocks where he plants pumpkins and gourds each summer. His children are often out there with him planting and picking things while his wife enjoys the shade. I haven’t seen them out yet this year which makes me think they might skip this season.
- Berms and some raised bed formats change drainage. To what extent is that acceptable?
- What happens when a homeowner chooses to stop gardening/is unable to continue caring for the visible garden?
- How many seasons/years should a garden plot go unused before it is removed? And what does removal look like?
The family just south have a “pollinator garden” (they say) where their children have painted boards and rocks and sculptures… and left them subject to the elements. The area is not my favorite to walk by with its thistle and grasses leaning over the sidewalk, but there are a few sunflowers that emerge each year and the “wild” nepeta is some of the first pollinator food in the neighborhood come spring. And for the record, the whole family sits out front and enjoys it many times each week. They just mowed the weeds so maybe they were observing “No-Mow May”?
- Weeds are just happy little plants growing where we don’t want them. Who gets to call a plant a weed? (Please do not write a list of prohibited or classified plants. You’ll make the news. Also, CSU Extension has a helpful Noxious Weed and Invasive Plants page.)
- What makes a space a pollinator garden or sanctuary?
- What constitutes a tidy garden?
The teacher who lives between my house and the pollinator garden has a formal “Midwest” lawn with irrigated Kentucky bluegrass bordered by pink roses, white iris and purple salvia. I have never seen her enjoying it, but contractors are often tinkering with the irrigation and spraying the shrubs. I think it’s pretty. I also think she overwaters and allows dubious chemicals.
- What happens when chemicals from her lawn impact the pollinator garden? What happens when what she perceives as weeds creep into her lawn? Who is the nuisance?
- How could we encourage neighbors who do not want a visible garden to help save water?
My front lawn is xeric with a few tomatoes hidden close to the house in a small irrigated patch. We don’t sit out there often, but when we do, neighbors often stop to comment happily on the changes we have made. It is south-facing and used to be a large rectangle of bluegrass. We could not water enough after May/June to keep it from going dormant.
- What water wise solutions might a community consider that are not visible gardens?
- Who pays to change the irrigation?
All this to say, what fits the greater neighborhood and the ethos of our neighbors? Do we want to encourage encounters with people as they walk by us doing the gardening? Do we want to proudly suggest that our people are water savers? Pollinator supporters? Do we hope that our neighborhood – like an un-bumper-stickered mid-price car – will not announce anything except its relative sensibility and safety?
I like to think about these things. It feels impossible to ask an association board or landscape committee to craft guidelines that speak for an entire community, but that is literally what our government has asked associations to do. They’re tiny villages of people doing their best to live good lives and they hope their neighbors won’t take exception to their choices.
As suggestions to get started “allowing visible gardens” a committee might consider the following:
Water
Since the intent of the law is to “encourage water-wise behavior”, an association might ask owners who want to install visible gardens to pay for/install/administer the appropriate watering devices and/or hand water their garden. It would be ineffectual to allow the same watering routine for bluegrass to continue once all or a portion of it has been removed in exchange for a garden. It is worth noting that Denver Water does not regulate how often a vegetable garden is watered although they do put restrictions on turf irrigation.
Design and Installation
Keeping with the spirit of the law, an association should not set aesthetic guidelines that make installation of a new garden cost prohibitive. Remember that vegetable gardeners are often thrifty types and may upcycle materials that are more charming than attractive. Associations have the right to regulate these options.
A committee should consider what might be acceptable or unacceptable. They should also consider the longevity of the materials being used. At what point does a raised bed need to be repaired or replaced?
Maintenance
Anyone who has googled “front yard garden” knows the number one rule is to keep things tidy (so as to not ruin it for the rest of us). The term “tidy” leans subjective, but I think reminding neighbors of the concept is fair enough.
Vegetable gardens are not always lovely and aesthetics do matter. An organized and tidy plot, even if you subscribe to chaos theory, can go a long way toward making the space unobjectionable.
For me, this also means cleaning and repairing my vegetable plots in the fall. I leave plant skeletons up all winter in my flower gardens as critter habitat. This might not be a choice I would make if my only gardens were visible to the neighbors.
Community
If nothing else, spending more time in your front garden means you’ll meet the people who walk their dogs.
Should the community choose to welcome visible gardens, consider hosting a vegetable exchange at the end of the summer. It could be as simple as a table in the shade near the clubhouse or mailboxes with a sign: “Leave Your Surplus, Take Our Surplus”. It could be as involved as a potluck!
Maybe in the spring, the community encourages a plant exchange?
If the neighborhood is jumping in with both feet, perhaps a garden tour in August? Or a garden construction event in October? Maybe you invite/hire a landscaper to teach your homeowners how to install water-wise irrigation for their new gardens in April.
How neat would it be to see how much water the community is allowing to stay in the watershed? What that means in real dollars?
At the end of the day, we are working to improve the home values and experiences of community association homeowners. Most of the work is on them. They are their own neighbors. Love thy neighbor and now their garden plot.
Danielle Holley is a gardening enthusiast. She works at Hearn & Fleener in Littleton, CO as their Director of Client Services where she provides support to managers and association boards during their construction defect claims. She has been an active member of Community Associations Institute since 2009 and she especially enjoys the landscaping classes. She welcomes your feedback on this essay and your garden surplus.
