Living in an area that is ruled by a Homeowners’ Association or that is subject to other (often seemingly) strict regulations can make it difficult to garden – especially if you enjoy growing your own food in a fruit and vegetable garden.
With a bit of creativity and forward thinking, however, you may still be able to garden within the confines of your HOA and local restrictions. There are often work arounds to be had.
And/or ways to at least fly under the radar and beat them at their own game.
Jump to:
- What do Home Owners’ Associations Hate About Gardens (Especially Edible Gardens?)
- How You Can Beat Your HOA or Regulators at Their Own Game
- #1 Create an Edible Landscape
- #2 Plant Vegetable and Fruit Plants in less Traditional Arrangements
- #3 Mimic Neighborhood Garden Designs
- #4 Search the Approved Plant List for Things they May not Realize are Double Duty
- #5 Container Planting
- #6 Use Porches and Patios
- #7 Plant Up!
- #8 Plant Perennial Edibles and Use Ground Covers for the Off Season
- #9 Choose Plants that Fit the Color Scheme
- #10 Set out Inconspicuous Mini “Rain Barrels”
- #11 Store Large Water Collections Inside, Out of Site
- #12 Install an Attractive Water Feature
- #13 Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (If a Fence is Allowed)
- #14 Cover Up Garden Noises and Activities
- #15 Play Nice and Keep Garden Beds Kept Up
- #16 Add Seating and/or Tasteful, Suitable Garden Decor -- But with Care
- Don’t Let Gardening Methods Drawn Attention to You
- Know What Your HOA Covenant Says
What do Home Owners’ Associations Hate About Gardens (Especially Edible Gardens?)
At their heart, Home Owner’s Association rules aren’t all bad. Some even have a basis in some logic.
The usual justification for creating these types of rules and restrictions are
- Untidiness
- Lack of Uniformity
- Water Usage (Often for reasons of municipal compliance and/or health and safety)
- Insect and (to a lesser degree) wildlife control
In some instances, there can be a real argument made for health and safety. Often, though, the justification primarily is to create a clean, cohesive, pretty place of uniformity and higher property values.
How You Can Beat Your HOA or Regulators at Their Own Game
There are things that you can do without breaking any regulations or homeowners' association rules, and then there are things that can help you sneak in an extra head of lettuce or two and fly under the radar.
There is, of course, no one set of rules or regulations from one HOA to the next; they’re all unique. Even locally, town and municipal regulations will vary. You’ll need to see exactly what you are or aren’t dealing with.
Here are sixteen things that you can do to address local regulations and HOA restrictions and maybe even beat them at their own game.
#1 Create an Edible Landscape
Edible plants can be just as attractive as perennials and other plants we grow as ornamental. In fact, there are some ornamental plants we grow that are already edible.
Edible landscaping has been growing in popularity in part because it makes good logical sense to put your time, money, and effort into something that is more than just something to look at.
It is also gaining in popularity because it has proven to be a way to get around and work within restrictions like HOA regulations.
#2 Plant Vegetable and Fruit Plants in less Traditional Arrangements
Do away with the idea that vegetables and edible plants need to be planted in straight garden rows. There are many ways to plant in groupings and layers and use edible plants as borders and accents.
Straight garden beds draw attention to the fact that that is what you’re growing. They also end up fallow spaces in fall and winter that are despised by HOA’s (and a lot of the reason these sorts of restrictions exist).
#3 Mimic Neighborhood Garden Designs
Look around and choose and plan edible garden designs that copy the look and feel of area gardens.
If uniformity and curb appeal are the goals of gardens in your HOA, then building one that looks the same but with more useful plants will fit more easily within that goal.
It will also be less obvious and draw less attention to the fact that you may be bending or outright breaking some rules.
#4 Search the Approved Plant List for Things they May not Realize are Double Duty
It’s common for HOA’s to go as far as having an approved list of plants, shrubs, and trees that are edible plants. Edible plants are not always strictly limited.
Search your approved plant list, if there is one, and pay special attention to the types of plants and trees that can do double duty.
For example, if a flowering cherry is on the list or an ornamental elderberry, what’s to say the elderberry or cherry you choose can’t be an edible variety?
For annual vegetables, there are things like attractive scarlet runner beans and climbing Malabar spinach that are often considered more ornamental than annual (but that make great edibles, too).
Several herbs are considered more ornamental than edible, too, so that can be a good inroad into growing more of your own. Lavender, for example, is one plant that is rather double-duty and that regulators may not know how to categorize and so it may not be restricted.
#5 Container Planting
Container plants may or may not be covered by your HOA. HOA restrictions are more likely to apply to more permanent plants and ground plantings.
So, a nice container garden may be an easy answer that lets you garden berries, fruits, and vegetables – maybe even easier than if you were gardening in the ground.
#6 Use Porches and Patios
Porches and patios should be more private spaces, and they are great places to grow container gardens. They also tend to be easier places to screen and keep prying eyes out of what you’re growing.
You could even set up a trellis for containers of vining plants like pole beans, runner beans, squash, and pumpkins. The trellis can act as a privacy screen to hide what you’re growing back there.
#7 Plant Up!
There are many ways you can go “up” with your plantings. This saves space and makes use of space that may not be as restricted as the ground (if at all).
Those trellises mentioned in number six are one way.
Hanging containers of dripping strawberries or lettuce and greens are another.
There are really so many things that can be grown in containers, and many of those can either be grown on trellises or in hanging baskets that can skirt HOA “laws”.
#8 Plant Perennial Edibles and Use Ground Covers for the Off Season
The off season, when vegetable patches and annuals die off, are one of the things that HOA’s hate about vegetable gardens. In the late fall, winter, and early spring, they look like dead or dug up, exposed ground. That hardly fits the ideal of the manicured lawn and landscape.
There are a few ways to overcome this and keep your edible patches looking good enough to placate the HOA.
One way is to grow edible plants that are perennial. At least, grow enough of them to keep areas growing and planted, and use them to work annual edible plants in between.
Adopting no-till practices is a good move, too.
One other way to overcome the barrenness that turns HOA’s off is to use ground covers in the off season or to use low-growing plantings that you can plant through, like clover.
Planting through clover is a living, green way to mulch out weeds and preserve soil moisture. What's nice about it is that the clover can be mowed and still thrive, whereas weeds that might poke through it will not.
There are several other edible ground covers that are perennial and can work well to keep spaces looking good, including strawberries and ground blueberries.
#9 Choose Plants that Fit the Color Scheme
Uniformity from house to house is one of the goals of HOA planting regulations. Often, HOA’s will maintain a color scheme or palette that plants and garden designs must adhere to.
Choose your edible plants according to the color scheme. Even vegetables and edible “greens” like kale and lettuce have varieties in different palettes, including red, purple, and green.
Herbs like basil come in different color varieties, too.
Seek out plants that suit the color scheme and that you can work with creatively to create a design that is edible but ornamental, too.
#10 Set out Inconspicuous Mini “Rain Barrels”
Rain barrels are something that are frequently regulated by HOAs, and possibly by local governments, too. One of the reasons is that they can potentially become breeding grounds for insects like mosquitoes.
That’s fair enough, but if you live somewhere where you frequently need to water and you have a municipal water supply, you may also be subject to watering restrictions. Having enough water for watering your plants and doing so affordably can be tough.
Instead of keeping a large barrel, set out smaller containers that can go unnoticed or be seen as just another part of the decor. Crocks, vases, and watering cans can nicely do the trick.
A nice side benefit is that this often puts water within reach right where you need it.
#11 Store Large Water Collections Inside, Out of Site
If you do manage to sneak in some larger water collection vessels, don’t leave them lying around for all to see. (Five-gallon buckets tucked into corners or under eaves work well.)
Don't make it obvious, and don’t leave them out to be found.
When the rain is done, put a cover on that bucket and move it inside a garage or shed for storing until it’s needed. No one will think much about seeing you bring a bucket of water out of your garage to water some plants.
#12 Install an Attractive Water Feature
Water features can be controversial, and they may or may not be allowed where you live. If they are, though, they can be a good way to keep and collect water for watering.
Water features are attractive and often relaxing, but one of the concerns is the potential for breeding mosquitoes and other insects. Mosquito dunks are a low-impact way to prevent mosquitoes from hatching.
Preventing insects can go a long way towards acceptance of ponds and water features.
#13 Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (If a Fence is Allowed)
Garden fences can serve a variety of purposes. Be aware, though, that they can also draw attention to a functional garden (like a vegetable garden). They may raise the question, “What are you trying to protect?”
The first bit of advice is this – if you are installing fencing, either for privacy or to protect your gardens, make them attractive.
Don't try to get away with something that doesn’t fit into HOA rules.
A vegetable garden surrounded by chicken wire dug down into the ground probably won’t go over well.
If you don’t want everyone nosing into your business, a privacy fence around your property – or at least the part of your property where you plan to garden – may keep noses out of things and reduce the complaints (and visibility) of your production gardens.
Of course, fences will have to align with your HOA’s requirements but keep in mind that even if you can’t install permanent structures, or those structures won’t be enough to hide your garden, you may be able to create a living fence or privacy screen.
#14 Cover Up Garden Noises and Activities
Neighbors may not take nicely to the noise of you rototilling a vegetable patch, but they probably won’t think twice about the noise of a lawnmower or leaf blower (within allowable hours).
A landscaper or lawn mower can help you garden under cover, as it were. This can be a good time to fire up a noisier piece of garden equipment or even to take on hand digging and planting when the activity might go unnoticed as part of your yard maintenance and due diligence.
#15 Play Nice and Keep Garden Beds Kept Up
The point of restrictions from homeowners' associations is to keep the neighborhood looking good. Make sure you do the same with your edible landscapes and vegetable gardens.
A vegetable garden can be a place of beauty when it is done well and regularly maintained.
Keep things clean and weeded, and use mulch to reduce weeds and maintenance.
Show them all that vegetable gardens are beautiful, too!
#16 Add Seating and/or Tasteful, Suitable Garden Decor -- But with Care
People don’t often think of the vegetable patch as the place where you’ll choose to set your seating. Garden sculptures and decorative features are more typically associated with ornamental gardens.
So placing them in amongst your under-the-radar vegetable patch or ground covering strawberries may throw off onlookers so they don’t realize what you’re growing there.
Besides...we can all challenge typical garden “rules” and stereotypes and why not make our edible gardens a place of beauty and relaxation?
Just know that even garden sculptures and lawn furniture can fall under HOA restrictions. So, take care that what you choose falls within those guidelines. You don’t need that to be what calls attention to your edible garden or landscape.
Don’t Let Gardening Methods Drawn Attention to You
What you grow and garden isn’t the only thing that can draw attention to your HOA rebel garden. How you garden can, too.
- Use mulch to keep weeds down
- Choose landscape mulches over mulches and barriers that are typically thought of as “vegetable” or “garden” mulches; for example, wood or bark mulch is a better choice than plastic, paper, or exposed landscape fabrics
- If you do use a barrier like paper or landscape fabric, cover it with something attractive and HOA-approved (bark mulch or stone, for example)
- Opt for low, or better yet, no odor fertilizers and soil amendments. Compost and manure, even dried manure, can have a pungent smell. It’s one of the reasons HOA’s exist to begin with. Though we’re firm believers in natural fertilizers and compost, if it’s what causes you to not be able to grow your own fresh food, the better choice is to use something innocuous, even if it’s synthetic.
- Odorous fertilizers and amendments can also be a draw to wildlife, and that’s one more reason HOA’s don’t like gardens.
- Avoid loud and disruptive gardening methods (like tilling up a vegetable patch every year), especially when that’s all that’s going on.
- Avoid messy garden methods. Lasagna methods, natural gardens, and wilding patches all have great benefits to soil and the environment, but they tend to be messy-looking and, under the watchful eye of the HOA, are not the place for garden methods like these.
- Don’t create insect problems from things like mosquitoes, which can be argued successfully as a public health issue.
- If you do collect large, standing containers of water, do what you can to keep it insect-free. For mosquitoes, Mosquito Dunks are an organic solution that stops the insects from growing into biting adults. They’re a win-win because you’ll enjoy your yard more, too, and other beneficial insects and wildlife are not affected by them.
Know What Your HOA Covenant Says
Whether you choose to follow the letter of the HOA law or not, do get a copy of your association’s regulations. You may have more rights and leeway than you think, which is a nice surprise. It might allow you to do more than you’d even planned to do.
At the very least, know what the repercussions will be if you decide to fly in the face of the published restrictions.
Consequences may be warnings, monetary fines, or more. Decide ahead of time if you can afford to take risks if you’re going to take them. Decide which risks are and are not worth taking.
Challenge anything that is unlawful. Some states and countries protect citizens’ rights to grow their own food. If that right is protected by law, then your HOA cannot enforce its regulations.
You might also consider if it’s worth your time and energy to challenge and change HOA or local regulations.
Talk to others around you. Feel out neighbors to see what they think of the restrictions where you live. If there are enough of you with a similar interest, your voice should be heard. And the bigger and louder that voice, the better.
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