The Japan Federation of Landscape Contractors' Kei Truck Garden Contest challenges people to transform the beds of their miniature pickup trucks into lovely mobile gardens. From Spoon & Tamago:

Other than using the kei truck there are very few limitations and landscapers have incorporated everything from benches and aquariums to elements of lighting into their designs. Judges then rank the entries based on planning, expression, design, execution and environment.

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The LA Times' Q&A column tapped a lawyer to answer a reader's question about their crazy-ass homeowners' association, which denied an application to plant a front lawn of drought-tolerant cactii and succulents because it wouldn't be "pretty" and because they "do not want New Mexico, Arizona or Nevada desert landscape." Read the rest