Eating the boulevard
Last weekend, a friend of mine said she wants to rip out the grass in her boulevard this year and put in a garden. Maybe she’ll plant snap peas and I can snitch a couple when I stroll by. Yum.
I’ve seen other folks plant food in boulevards, too, and today this piece, “The grass is not greener, but that’s OK,” reminded me to check out Missoula’s rules for boulevards.
Missoulians — and Greenough’ites and Arlee’ians — are fans of local food, but the rules aren’t all that inspiring when it comes to growing, say, strawberries or chives. In the area between the street and the yard, the focus is more on mowing the lawn and creating a “park-like space.”
The boulevards chapter 12.48 of city code doesn’t prohibit veggies, but the landscaping standards call for grass and flowers and ornamental plants.
What about edible ones? Darn. Dandelions fall into that category, and if anyone has a goat I can borrow, I’ll be happy to feed it if the dandelions visit.
– Keila Szpaller
March 9th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
growing food in boulevards was fairly extensive in south korea. i vote yes to boulevard gardens.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Nice topic, Keila. There is a lot of interest in xeriscaping boulevards, too. My boulevard is xeriscaped (= dry-scaping, with native plants in our case), and it was just a matter of getting approval from the city forester to deviate from a lawn. This involved sumbitting a simple site plan and species list. I don’t think it would be any harder to get approval to grow fruits/veggies, since those are in fact flowering plants. And there are certainly many examples of ornamental ( = pretty looking) edible gardens in the world. I think the biggest problem with using your boulevard for edibles is that we have such a short growing season in MT that the blvd would be “put to bed” for a good part of each year and would need extra work to keep it looking attractive in the non-food gardening season. That is not a reason to NOT do it, just a consideration for the homeowner.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Ooh — thanks for the comments, Marilyn — be fun to do a story about xeriscaping — maybe someone who is giving their yard or boulevard an overhaul this season with native plants or edible stuff.
If anyone knows of someone working on some such yard project in Missoula, feel free to email me: keila.szpaller@missoulian.com.
March 11th, 2010 at 7:57 am
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation old headquarters building on West Broadway was an early large xeriscaping project. For whatever reason it was torn out.