Also, our village officeholders are total morons.

That little wussy plastic fence isn’t going to do anything to stop things like deer, groundhogs, squirrels.

My parents already tried that, now they’ve moved on to the electric fence. That works pretty well, especially in conjunction with a decent rifle.

I support this lady 100%. There are several people that do front yard gardening around my area and most people think it’s pretty cool. Yeah it looks like a jungle at times, but at least they are getting something out of it. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t live in an area with a HOA, well not technically anyway.

If the HOA doesn’t have clear rules on such an issue, and the residents don’t seem interested in creating these rules, why isn’t this just done by a majority vote? Isn’t that the ultimate reasoning for a HOA, so everyone is doing a similar thing (or things that are within a general expectation of your neighbors)?

She should make some fresh pasta sauce and serve it up at the next HOA meeting. Then they can all eat humble pie.

As to you EH, Doubting Thomas, clearly the gardeners you know are not very serious. We have upwards of 50 tomato plants, over 30 pepper plants and are preserving every damned last piece of edible fruit.

2.) Arguing that democracy, in the form of semiannual elections, gives individuals power to hold abusive governments accountable strikes me as naive. Perhaps I’m merely an angry lefty, but the complete lack of Change we’ve seen in the past almost-two-years signifies to me that accountability is dead, even for elected gubmints.

I don’t think they actually have the power to enforce this.

Why? It should be “void b/c of vagueness”. It does not provide society with adequate warning as to what type of conduct might be subject to prosecution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_for_vagueness)

For those interested it isn’t really just an issue with the ordinances of Northbrook (specifically Chapter 25 – TREE PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION, VEGETATION >> ARTICLE IV. – WEEDS AND GRASSES ).

It is an issue with Illinois law which does not define what a “nuisance greenery” is ( see IL Law here http://bit.ly/a3LZvK ). Look specifically at Sec. 11‑20‑7. Cutting and removal of neglected weeds, grass, trees, and bushes.

In fact this was brought up by the landlord protection agency and others as allowing the government to do whatever they liked to your vegetation since it does not define nuisance from non nuisance. http://bit.ly/dhjvhG

Either there is no power to enforce or it is vague and arbitrary.

If they let her have a garden, how do you say no when the guy next door wants to put a solar panel on his own roof? Where do you draw the line between beautiful sterility and hopeless insanity?

Goodness, I bet you would descend into some Lovecraftian madness.

But seriously man. If someone’s yard bothers you that much, you really have no business living anywhere near other people.

Articulating a purely anti-HOA set of beliefs is either inconsistent (if it supports local, state or national-level laws) or leads to vulgar strict-propertarian anarcho-capitalism, which we all know is silly.

Wonder what the status of medical marijuana is in IL. Wouldn’t it poke the eye of the village Board of Trustees to have ‘grass’ re-interpreted?!?!

I’d also like to go to the board meetings and go on about shrubberies and herrings.

Wait! There’re trees in the picture.

And since when are our laws for the purpose of protecting our neighbors’ perception of property values?

Can anyone else?

All I can find is: http://library.municode.com/index.aspx?clientId=11769&stateId=13&stateName=Illinois

This looks very simple ultimately; the municipality has no leg.

+1 for “vulgar strict-propertarian anarcho-capitalism”, though.

It’s her property. Let her do what she wants with it.

Europeans grew tomatoes as ornamental plants until the figured out that they were edible.

There’s room for compromise if this lady’s neighbor’s ask nicely. She could plant edible plants that are also ornamental, like chard, scarlet runner beans, and long peppers and leave a token fringe of grass around the edge of the yard.

Denying this woman the right to the pursuit of happiness by growing her own food on her son’s land is insidious.

If they make her take down her garden I hope she follows the lawn regulations to the letter and keeps her grass a little less than 10 inches long.

Is the village of Northbrook actually telling her they think the block’s property value will increase if she chops down all those trees instead?

She should call it a Victory garden and tell them they’re being unpatriotic as well as environmentally unfriendly.

The article had a couple interesting points:

“There is no ordinance that specifically deals with a garden in the front yard,” said Tom Poupard, director of community planning and development for the village. “It truly is a gray area.”

So really there is no law against what she has, but her neighbors don’t like it and so they complained and so the city feels like they “need to do something.”

Village code also requires residents to cut their grass when it reaches 10 inches in height

Just mow it to 10″ for a while and see what they think!

Really, though, that garden is a shambles. If it was clean and pretty then the neighbors would not have complained. My mother has no grass around her house with an enormous lot – it’s all perennial gardens – and nobody has complained. Quite the contrary, people stop by and compliment her on the garden constantly. But it’s not a messy shambles of plastic netting and weedy looking plants.

This is the rusted out Chevy up on blocks of the gardening world.

Because you are a carpetbagger and I am not.

Also, I like that freedom thing.

What she should do, then, is seed bomb the hell out of every patch of grass in the neighborhood not connected to a yard. Presumably, every other resident would die of shame, and she’d be free to garden as she pleased.