Small Garden Idea: Plant the Parkway

That space between the street and the sidewalk known as the parkway is often overlooked. In Los Angeles, the city technically owns it, but most of the time it's the residents that maintain it. So take a page from this Valley home and fill the parkway with drought tolerant plants instead of a (normally half dead) lawn. Water wise and beautiful.

Stick to the full sun section of the nursery and try California Poppies, Mexican sage, ornamental grasses and some succulents for a similar look.

Comments (25)

While I love the way this looks...
...I can just see a misguided city employee coming down the block on a riding lawntractor for their once-a-year-whether-it-needs-it-or-not mow-athon taking this garden out.

I know that in Seattle, the homeowner does all the maintenance - there's no risk of having the plants taken out. There are even guidelines as to what may or may not be planted.

We're working on developing an area that is not huge (but at least 45 square feet) from a dandelion field into a mass of rosemary, lavender, blue fescue, iris, cyanothis, mock orange and euphorbia. In just two years, it has already taken shape with literally no watering from us (just planting during the wettest parts of the year). I would love to see tiny, urban forests all over the neighborhood.

I may be wrong, but I believe Angelenos are responsible for the parkway in fromt of their home.

Wherever you live, just make sure what you put in the parkway is allowed, if planting there is legal at all - here in Lincoln, it's not.

In Salt Lake City the Utah Rivers Council has a website with tips for "ripping your strip". http://www.ripyourstrip.com/

WOW! I wish I could garden like that!

In Akron OH we call it the devilstrip. Not sure how it started but even the city signs say "no parking on devilstrip". Google it I dare you ; )

it's called a boulevard up here, and yes, the property owners are responsible but city owns.Don't know if you can plant other stuff there or not, but sure wish it was possible - it would certainly limit the dog poop that usually appears there...

I just worry about how the passengers are going to get out of the car :)

I LOVE it when people do this. I see it all the time in Seattle.

lizzykewl, some people do this so people won't park in front of their houses.

Last year city workers cut down a native plant toronto boulevard - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/city_destroys_1.php

I never had this problem, but a number of neighbours commented that they didn't like my goldenrod because it was causing them allergies. Goldenrod isn't an allergen, but often takes the blame for ragweed as its more noticeable during ragweed season.

UGH! I live on a block that is infested with these god damned mini gardens. I love plants and am all for pple making their lawns and gardens as nice as they want, but planting so much in that public space is ridiculous. It shows a lack of consideration for people's cars and public space. If the type of people who do this on my block are any indication of how the majority of pple who plant like this are, then at any moment, someone's going to come out screaming, telling them not to park there or to have their passengers exit the car before they park. Or they'll be total asses and double park their car so no one else can touch their precious plants. Or better yet, like the neihbors in front of us, put up f-ing caution tape so that no one can get out of their cars. Planting this much is so little PUBLIC space and then expecting others to heed to every one of your damn demands is ridiculous. We have a parking problem in our neighborhood and the douches who plant their huge bushes and plants only aggravate it. Go ahead and plant make it nice, but seriously, remember that it's a public space with a purpose. Ima go stomp on some reeds now.

I once wished for more of such plantings. But now I think they break up the visual continuity of the street. It's kind of like one person doing it is pretty, but if everybody did, it could be a visual mess.

In PDX we call it the Planting Strip.

I don't think people should be allowed to do this to prevent people from parking in front of their house--the street is PUBLIC and the spot in front of the house isn't anyone's personal property. Why not limit such wild growth to the person's own yard rather than the public space?

My old neighbors had a really nice planting in their easement strip. They put flagstones along the curb so that people could get out of their cars. It was pretty and polite, and getting out of the car was even easier there, because it wasn't muddy after a rain.

I love it when people do that. One of my douchebag neighbors has sod brought in every year, since every spring it gets taken over by weeds. A different douchebag neighbor just lets the weeds run rampants until their 3 feet tall, and they get a ticket from the city. My wife planted ours up, and the part nearest the street has a lot of groundcover that people can walk on. She has spent a grand total of 5 minutes on maintenence this year, vs the hours that other people have spent watering an mowing, and it looks fantastic.

One by one, other people on the block are starting to dig their yards up too.

There's a lot of this in Chicago. I do prefer the ones that have a little brick path next to the curb so you can get out of the car.

I think it's pretty.

Posts by two people that include name calling centred around douches and douchbags - mini-trend?

Touche', peacelily!

Or should I say douche'?

peacelily... Regarding the douchebag renaissance, here is an article from a year ago talking about how it's all over the place: http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/03/15/an-old-insult-makes-a-clean-comeback/

I love it. Very common in Seattle, and I've never heard of anyone freaking out about others parking in front of it. My neighbor forbids anyone from parking in the street in front of his home, and throws a kind of scary tantrum if anyone does, but his parkway is as unkempt and ugly as they come, so no correlation there. A douchebag is a douchebag, with or without a garden.