This is so cool. I was kind of surprised that Lansing allows this as I know a lot of other city's zoning codes prevent gardens in front yards. I remember a huge dust-up in Oak Park when a women turned her front yard into a garden. I think she eventually won, but she was being threatened with all kind of legal action.
Nick King | Lansing State Journal
"An oasis among the lawns": These residents are ditching traditional front yards
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LANSING — When Jennie Gies was growing up, it took her nearly six hours to mow the grass at her family's five-acre property in the northern part of Michigan's Bay County.
It's a chore the 35-year-old doesn't miss now that she lives on Lansing's east side and keeps only a small patch of grass between the sidewalk and road. Gies, a legislative program coordinator for the Michigan Nurses Association, has replaced most of the yard at her Ferguson Street home with vegetables and native plants.
In doing so, she joins the ranks of other Lansing residents who are ditching what was once a middle-class ideal — the perfectly manicured front lawn. For some residents, the choice is aesthetic. For other lawn apostates, the reasons are environmental.
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A Lansing spokeswoman said the city doesn't require residents to keep front lawns with grass. City ordinances do prohibit weeds and require that grass be no more than eight inches tall. Additionally, the city forbids plants that block sidewalks and prohibits keeping "indoor" furniture outdoors.
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Nick King | Lansing State Journal
It's a really interesting article in full. Ostensibly, many of these ordinances about lawns were put in when ideas of aesthetics were different and to keep the nature out of the city. But, I'm kind of glad that mindset is changing, and I'm glad this city at least doesn't make
this difficult.