A small townhome garden in suburbia
Throughout the years I have had my share of encounters with HOAs, COAs, ARBs and every other alphabet soup entity in the housing world.
Townhomes have a lot of advantages in this high priced market and offer an ease of living with little to no maintenance in areas outside of your home. If you do however want to try and grow some of your own food in these communities you may run into some problems however. The key in gardening in townhome communities is to play by a few simple rules.
First rule- “Out of sight out of mind”. It is highly unlikely, although not impossible, that your “gray area” garden will garner any unwanted attention if it’s simply out of sight from public areas.
The second rule- “Do not impede maintenance or management employees.” The fastest way to draw the ire of the town home police is to impede their day to day operations. Sometimes your garden can occupy a space that was in need of maintenance or was a constant problem for lawn care, this can actually create a win-win situation that allows your illicit garden to gain informal support (our lawn care crew even started mulching our garden for us!).
The third rule- “Choose plants with a small footprint and big bang for the buck” It’s probably not a great idea to plant large unruly plants that make your ‘guerrilla garden’ look more like a jungle than a paradise. In fact most town home bylaws don’t even mention plants, instead using much more ambiguous language like “homeowner must keep area neat and tidy”. Growing varieties of plants that continually fruit on compact plants like some varieties of tomatoes and peppers are ideal for small potted gardens in these communities.
And as for the last rule- “Look for precedence”. Take a look around your community and see what people are already getting away with. Giant grills, potted plants, garden gnomes, patio augmentations and other laxed enforcement are all good indicators that it’s probably a safe investment to try and scratch that green thumb itch (just don’t ask for permission, it’s much easier to ask for forgiveness).
Once you get passed the bureaucratic red tape it is important to maintain and love your garden. It’s highly unlikely you will be able to come up with a system that will meet your family’s produce needs so growing experiences and limiting your expectations is the most rewarding scenario for gardening under these conditions. Our family has found a (presumably) acceptable footprint for 2 Corten steel raised beds from Veradek which have produced several first harvests for our kids- which is pretty amazing considering we don’t technically have a yard!
“A shovel changes everything! Gardening makes me feel like I am working hard towards something important. Getting dirt on my hands is proof of that.” - Henry (age 10)
