Go Wildscaping

Our homeowners’ association recently sent a notice they were getting stricter on home exteriors. I won’t debate the merits of all the new requirements here, but I do want to focus on one: the HOA identified lawn maintenance as a particular area it would focus on.

Specifically, the HOA’s letter stated “Lawns should be well-maintained, including the application of pine straw or mulch in flower beds and other suitable areas. Weeds should be controlled, and any bare patches of grass must be sodded. Lawns should be edged to prevent grass from encroaching on concrete surfaces.”

So let’s unpack that a bit.

We technically do maintain our yard (or lawn), but how well we maintain it is debatable. For instance, we regularly mow, we grow nice flowers around our yard, and we keep the shrubs around our home reasonably trimmed. But we don’t spray herbicides to control weeds (other than one time when we had a nasty bout of carpet burweed we were having issues controlling manually). And we mow our lawn very low, which gives weeds a competitive edge over Bermuda grass. (We learned that lesson too late, and now we keep it low to prevent the weeds from going to seed.) However, if our yard is freshly mown, it actually looks pretty decent because you can’t tell what’s growing there.

For reference, there are definitely yards in the neighborhood that aren’t mown regularly and/or with weeds and grass overwhelming flower beds. I’m not saying that to point fingers since we’re not exactly angels, but it does create bigger targets for the HOA than our own yard. Also, the HOA provides a 30-day period to address “violation notices.” So we won’t simply be fined without advance notice.

And arguably, we are controlling our weeds by mowing them before they set seed. But it’s no guarantee against HOA scrutiny. Also, it’s still annoying to mow so much! (Ahem – I say that on my husband’s behalf.) So we have yet another reason to eliminate the lawn – hooray!

Options I considered but rejected:

• Moving somewhere without an HOA
• Mulching the entire front yard (although probably only the Bermuda grass would survive this, so it’s not the worst idea)

Remaining options:

• Take a wait-and-see approach
• Replace more of the yard with native plantings, especially more visible areas and harder-to-mow areas

Stay tuned!