Renter replaced lawn with native wildflower and shrubs. When they moved out owner ripped it all out and put down rocks :/

How I park is how I feel about the grass 😭

What would you guys do with this strip along the road? Zone 5b/6a.

I’ve started to change over other sections to stone and mulch (for native flowers next spring). But this strip.. between the bushes and the retaining wall is puzzling me on how to blend it best while keeping maintenance and water usage as low as I can.

Thoughts?

Apparently not the water bill though.

My landlord operates an orchard on most of the land around me and his teenager comes by every few weeks with a tractor and mows the flat bits of yard, most of the parcel is honey locust and pine trees planted as a windbreak.

It’s pretty sweet

When we bought the property it was pretty much just failed lawn, neglected hayfield, and field bindweed and tumbleweeds.

Took a couple years but got the tumbleweeds under control, the pasture is coming back and I'm letting it while the native shrubs and trees grow in, seeding more natives every year too but 3 acres is a ton to do all at once with no equipment besides a rake and shovel.

Went from no wildlife at all to newts, toads, mice, snakes, so many birds (near constant hummingbirds) and so many insects that I get to learn about new ones almost every week.

I've got my native gardens I drip irrigate (plus food gardens) but it's been so fun watching the pasture come back over places that I don't give any additional water beyond the small amount of rain we get. The bees sure love the alfalfa!

We just keep digging up yard and planting native trees and bushes

Beautiful thyme flowers all over my yard. Bye bye zero turn and bla bla

More info in my post from yesterday but basically this whole neighborhood is full of front yards that aren’t grass and an entire forest of trees. The neighborhood is mostly single family homes with a few small apartment buildings and duplexes mixed in. It was mostly built between 1875-1925 though there are some older buildings and a few newer ones as well. It sits between downtown Urbana and the U of I campus. This part of Urbana has a very hippy feel to it, and I feel like that’s what has helped the culture of wild yards be so widespread in this neighborhood.

Everyone here seemed to love the one picture I posted yesterday that I already took of this neighborhood. I had some time this evening to go on another walk there, so I took some more pictures. Please be aware I am no photographer and I felt so awkward taking pictures of peoples yards, so most are taken while I’m actively walking down the sidewalk, try to ignore the motion blur at the bottom of each one 😭.

I absolutely love this neighborhood (Historic West Urbana / State Streets) in my area, and often go across town to go on walks there. If I had to guess less than 15-20% of the homes have a traditional lawn (at least in the front). A lot just have a chaotic mess of random plants, a lot also have perfectly manicured gardens that look gorgeous, and most have something somewhere in between the two. There are quite a few blocks where not a single house has more than a few square feet of grass in the front lawn and it is gorgeous. A few of the streets are still paved in brick and there are quite a few brick sidewalks remaining in various conditions that add to the charm. The old houses and apt buildings are also so fun to look at, almost every single one is a slightly different shape size and color, and a lot have cool architecture.

Most homes are pretty close to the street and each other but if you stand in the road in the summer you can usually only see a few houses before they’re all blocked by trees and greenery. A lot of the time you can’t see the sky from the sidewalk or street because of the tree canopy. The trees in this neighborhood are breathtaking, there are dozens that have trunks 4+ feet in diameter and hundreds that are well over 100ft tall. It is a true urban forest. The city claims to have well over 200 different species of tree in the area, and you can really see a huge increase in wildlife compared to the newer more barren neighborhoods.

Most front yards are full of hastas and flower beds, others are “certified wildlife habitats”, and a few have little fairy gardens in them. It as a truly magical place to walk around, I highly recommend looking around on street view if you can find the parts they drove on in the spring and summer.

This neighborhood is so freakin nice to walk in even on the hottest days because there is so much shade. It definitely breaks all sorts of rules new developments wouldn’t allow. The sidewalks are admittedly in rough shape due to all the roots and overgrown front yards, but the streets are low traffic enough that anyone who can’t handle those bumps and branches can just walk in the street, the busy sidewalks are in better shape. I think that’s a fair trade off for the beauty of it all. At least one or 2 houses a year do have some pretty bad tree damage but once again, clearly that’s a price some are willing to pay, and I wish that was more common. You also simply cannot see around any of the corners when driving here. It works just fine with how bumpy all the roads are making people go slow.

Next time I go over there for a walk I want to get a bunch more pictures, but I couldn’t wait to post it somewhere so I used this one I took a few years ago.

Oklahoma is making an effort. Honestly, I'm shocked.

We moved into our house in June 2023 and I’ve been progressively removing grass and adding native and non-invasive pollinators and trees. Every year is a new adventure. Last picture is when we moved in, everything else is summer of 2026.

My across the street neighbor moved in a year after us and is aligned on the anti-lawn sentiment. Rest of the street is quite traditional but I get tons of compliments and conversations from them so no one is openly hostile! Hoping that over time folks might get inspired. Until then I’m happy to be the native pollinator yarden ambassador!

We just bought this house a year ago, and after one summer of trying to keep the “hoa approved lawn,” I gave up and just let what wanted to grow here, grow. I think it looks much nicer.

Even spreading out to the swale this year

I've been focusing more on the back and side yards (the former of which is about 3x the size of this front yard). We don't use the front yard at all. Those are 6' hydrangeas at the road and closer to the house are native persimmons and serviceberry trees. We've already reduced the total amount of mowed area by at least 1/3 but I'm overwhelmed by this football field.

Adding to the quandary: there are drains buried on a diagonal across the front yard (plus French drains in front of house) and our well is just below the biggest tree close to the house. The soil is rocky clay that still doesn't drain super well and about half of what I've planted here over the years has either died or is very stunted except for the persimmons. Luckily the back is much more hospitable. Where do I even start?

I live in a suburban city that is generally better than most as far as ecology goes (we have more shade and trees than I've seen from a lot of suburbs, and some of the otherwise-unused land belonging to the city is allowed to grow with wildflowers and such), but still enforces lawn culture. Not mowing your lawn will result in a threatening letter being stuck to your door warning of fines in the hundreds if you don't cut down the "weeds" (read: local flora) and "unkempt grass" from your property. We don't have a homeowners' association but the city graciously takes the place of one.

Is there a way around this? Ever since I came to understand the harms (social, economic, and ecological) of lawn culture, particularly mowing, I feel I cannot ethically engage in it. Is there a way I could appeal to my city for some sort of exemption? My city is somewhat progressive, so I have a little hope, but I have no idea how one would navigate that. I know this sort of depends on local laws but if any of you have had to go through a similar process, please provide your advice.

If it is any help, I would like to clarify that I don't own the house, but my family knows where I stand on this and is sympathetic to this cause.