Is there a mini-movement afoot in Florence to rid the world of front lawns?

Not really, but several homes in the area have torn out the grass in front of their homes in favor of an extensive garden, and if Stan Pollack is ever appointed front yard czar, all cultivated grass would be thing of the past.

“I feel that lawns suck up so much energy, time and material, and people don’t use them,” said Pollack, whose house on the corner of Bardwell and North Maple streets is practically hidden behind a forest of sunflowers.

“I hate grass,” echoes Julie Kling, of High Street, who has been slowly turning her front yard from grass to flowers over the past four years, “You have to mow it, and it needs a certain amount of fussing.”

Kling’s cottage-style front garden is full of lupine, milkweed, asters, a butterfly bush; some of it she has picked up at plant swaps, others are “volunteers” — plants that blow in on the wind.
“It’s nothing fancy,” she said. “Things are all over the place.”
The first year, she took over about two feet of the front yard, the second year she took a bit more, and the next year pretty much completed the transformation.

“My sons have complained bitterly that I was taking over the front,” says Kling. “But they should be playing in the back yard anyway.”
Aside from the release of having to tend to their grass, both Kling and Pollack have found an added benefit to their colorful front yards.

“Whenever I am out in the garden, people walking by stop to talk,” says Kling. “It’s one of the joys of gardening.”

“It’s a bonding thing for people in the community,” Pollack said.

“I’m out in the garden a lot in the evenings and I get to meet people. These days there are so many distractions that keep us indoors, so our sense of community has diminished.”

Aside from his sunflowers, Pollack grows a wide array of fruits and vegetables in his front garden, including tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and watermelon.

Other homes on Stilson Street, High Street and North Maple have turned over the prime real estate on their front yard to flower and vegetables.