Bob Dylan, Native Gardens, and Limitations on HOA Control
In 1965, Bob Dylan walked onto the stage at the Newport Folk Festival carrying an electric guitar. In previous years, Dylan performed with his acoustic guitar and harmonica and had been one of the festival’s stars. But when Dylan challenged expectations by performing on an electric guitar, some audience members booed. Despite some people’s displeasure, Dylan’s use of an electric band changed the public’s ideas about what popular music should sound like.
More than 50 years later in Columbia, Maryland, Janet and Jeff Crouch similarly challenged expectations on what a yard should look like when they replaced much of their conventional turf with a native garden designed to provide habitat for birds, butterflies, and other wildlife. However, the Crouches’ “audience” included a homeowners’ association (HOA). The HOA did more than just boo at the Crouches’ yard, resulting in a legal dispute that lasted for years before finally settling.
Like Dylan, the Crouches changed popular ideas about what a yard should look like. In 2021, Maryland’s legislature enacted House Bill 322, which limits restrictions on landscaping focused on certain types of sustainable landscaping. Maryland Real Property Law Section 2-125 limits restrictions that can be imposed upon “low-impact landscaping,” including restrictions imposed through HOA and condominium documents.
The Crouches’ situation resonates with me because most of our rear yard is dedicated to a culinary garden, native plants, conservation landscaping, and shade trees that help reduce our energy usage. We don’t have an HOA. Still, to avoid controversy, we maintain a conventional turf yard in areas that are visible from the street.
This focus on sustainable landscaping isn’t limited to Maryland. Across the country, states are reconsidering how much control HOAS and, in some cases, local governments should have over landscaping that doesn’t look like a traditional lawn. This article discusses those laws and how they affect property owners and associations.
What Maryland Law Says About Landscaping Restrictions
Section 2-125 protects what it defines as “low-impact landscaping,” defined as “landscaping techniques that conserve water, lower maintenance costs, provide pollution prevention, and create habitat for wildlife.” The law lists the following types of low-impact landscaping, but these aren’t the only landscaping the law protects:
o “Bio–habitat gardens and other features designed to attract wildlife”
o “Pollinator gardens and other features designed to attract pollinator species”
o “Rain gardens and other features that use natural biological principles to return rainwater to the soil and to filter rainwater of excess nutrients”
o “Xeriscaping and other forms of landscaping or gardening that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation.”
The law prohibits any “unreasonable limitation on low-impact landscaping.” The law states that rules can’t require “cultivated vegetation to consist in whole or in part of turf grass.” The law also prohibits rules that significantly increase the cost or significantly decrease the efficiency of low-impact landscaping. So, under the law, someone could eliminate turf grass from their yard altogether.
Section 2-125 doesn’t just apply to HOA limitations on homeowner landscaping. The law also applies to commercial real estate and other types of use restrictions. In addition to HOAs, the law broadly defines “restriction on use” to include “ any covenant, restriction, or condition” in deeds, declarations, contracts, bylaws or rules of a condominium association, or mortgages or deeds of trust. The law also has a catch-all provision for other instruments affecting the transfer or sale of or any interest in real estate.
Still, owners can’t use a “plant it and forget it” strategy for native landscaping. Under the law, the owner must maintain or regularly tend to the low-impact landscaping. And the law allows “reasonable design and aesthetic guidelines regarding the type, number, and location of low-impact landscaping features.” Further, the law doesn’t affect laws relating to historic preservation.
Section 2-125 also doesn’t override Maryland’s Prohibited Invasive Plant List, which lists plants that may not be acquired or sold in the state of Maryland. Adopted by Maryland’s Invasive Plant Advisory Committee, that list currently includes previously popular plants such as English ivy, Atlantic ivy, orange daylily, golden bamboo, and burning bush.
Other States’ Landscaping Laws
State legislatures are increasingly deciding that private or local rules based on a traditional vision of a lawn shouldn’t prevent landscaping that advances other public policies, such as encouraging pollinators, fostering native plants, and conservation. The focus of state laws varies by state. So, while Maryland’s law focuses on wildlife habitat, preventing pollution, and conservation, in states like California or Colorado, where water use is a concern, the rules focus on water use.
For instance, California limits HOA restrictions that prohibit or effectively prohibit low-water-use plants as a group or as a replacement for turf. Colorado protects xeriscaping and drought-tolerant landscaping and requires covered associations to provide homeowners with water-wise landscaping options.
Washington laws restrict HOA prohibitions involving drought-resistant landscaping, wildfire ignition-resistant landscaping, and pollinator habitats. Minnesota protects “managed natural landscapes” from certain municipal restrictions and specifically distinguishes those landscapes from turf grass that has simply been left unattended.
Recorded Property Agreements May Not Be Enforceable
Many people believe that a deed restriction or declaration recorded in the county real estate records provides the last word on how someone can use their property, but that’s not always the case. For example, residential properties in older developments may include deed restrictions that limit the race or religion of individuals who can reside there. Those restrictions are illegal and unenforceable.
Likewise, Section 2-125 and other native plant laws can affect the enforceability of property agreements creating HOAs and condominiums. Property owners, HOAs, and other property associations should be aware of these laws because they can limit their ability to enforce landscaping restrictions.
Ideally, declarations and property agreements would be amended to remove illegal provisions. However, that’s not always easy to do. Frequently, a certain percentage or sometimes even all, of the property owners affected by the restrictions must agree to any amendment. Obtaining those agreements isn’t just time-consuming; a single property owner who disagrees with the law or simply doesn’t understand the need for the amendment can become a holdout who prevents the amendment.
So, instead of amending illegal provisions, it’s not uncommon for attorneys, title companies, and associations to ignore illegal provisions. However, these decisions aren’t one-size-fits-all, so it’s important that HOAs and other property associations, as well as property owners and developers, work with an experienced real estate attorney to determine the extent to which restrictions are enforceable and the best way to proceed given the circumstances.
Conclusion
Bob Dylan’s electric set at Newport transformed the music industry by challenging expectations about what folk music was supposed to sound like. Native landscaping similarly can challenge expectations about what a yard should look like but also can conserve water, support wildlife, reduce pollution, and still be aesthetically attractive.
As more states pass laws encouraging native landscaping, the language in a declaration or deed may no longer completely inform property owners or association boards of their rights. In particular, recorded declarations and restrictions may contain restrictions that are no longer enforceable because they reflect an earlier view of what landscaping should look like. So, association boards and property owners need to understand not only what the documents require but also whether later statutes or other legal developments have changed what those provisions mean in practice.
© 2026 by Elizabeth Ayres Whitman
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