Working With An HOA -- Natural Garden Design 

While many HOAs can be pretty restrictive, there are more and more success stories at the neighborhood and municipal level. The benefit of a natural garden -- from reduced water, fertilizer, and fossil fuel use, to cleaner and cooler air -- are too pressing for even HOAs to ignore as they work to cultivate healthy communities. This video touches on some of the basic strategies to take in working with an HOA to create a more sustainable and ecological habitat garden designed with purpose and beauty for all.
Learn more at monarchgard.com, which hosts jam-packed online classes and useful pocket garden guides on a wide range of sustainable landscape design subjects that empower and build confidence to garden with nature and not against it. There's also a self-paced design workshop that takes things to another level.
Monarch Gardens is a prairie-inspired design firm. It is managed by Benjamin Vogt, author of A NEW GARDEN ETHIC: CULTIVATING DEFIANT COMPASSION FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE, as well as PRAIRIE UP: AN INTRODUCTION TO NATURAL GARDEN DESIGN. Benjamin's work has been featured in The American Gardener, Dwell, Fine Gardening, The Guardian, Horticulture, Midwest Living, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as a variety of books including American Roots. He is a sought-after speaker on landscape ethics and natural design, combining dad jokes with passionate activism and practical advice to reprairie suburbia and unlawn America.