Landscaping Restrictions: Florida-Friendly Yards, Turf, Trees and Watering Bans

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 25, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: HOAs

Landscaping produces more violation letters than any other category and more retractions than any other category. The reason is that Florida has legislated around the edges of landscape covenants for twenty years, in four different chapters, and most association documents were written before any of it. A board that knows exactly where those limits fall can still enforce a great deal. A board that does not tends to enforce the wrong things loudly.

What a landscape covenant can still control

Start with what remains intact, because it is most of it. An association may require that a parcel be maintained in a neat and orderly condition. It may require turf and beds to be edged, mulched and free of weeds. It may prohibit dead or dying plant material, bare soil in the front yard, and storage of materials in view. It may require approval before an owner removes or replaces landscaping in the front yard, where the declaration says so.

Section 720.3035(1)(a) still supplies the frame. Architectural and landscape review authority exists only to the extent the declaration specifically states or reasonably infers it as to location, size, type or appearance, and the standards must be applied reasonably and equitably to every owner. A landscape standard adopted by board resolution with no covenant behind it is a weak instrument, for the reasons set out in our guide to architectural review procedures.

What has changed is not the board's general authority over appearance. It is that four statutes now carve specific things out of it, and each carve-out has a different shape. Taking them one at a time is the only way to keep them straight.

Florida-friendly landscaping

Section 373.185(1)(b) defines Florida-friendly landscaping as quality landscapes that conserve water, protect the environment, are adaptable to local conditions and are drought tolerant. The definition lists the principles: right plant in the right place, efficient watering, appropriate fertilization, mulching, attraction of wildlife, responsible management of yard pests, recycling yard waste, reduction of stormwater runoff and waterfront protection, along with landscape planning and design, soil analysis, appropriate use of compost, minimizing irrigation and proper maintenance.

Section 373.185(3)(b) then provides that a deed restriction or covenant may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping on his or her land, and may not create any requirement or limitation in conflict with part II of chapter 373 or with a water shortage order, other order, consumptive use permit or rule adopted under part II.

Two words in that sentence do the work. "Or be enforced so as to prohibit" means an association cannot reach the prohibited result indirectly through a facially neutral standard. A rule that every front yard be 80 percent St. Augustine sod is not framed as a ban on Florida-friendly landscaping, but applied to an owner converting to native plantings it operates as one.

What the statute does not do is hand every owner a blank check. It protects Florida-friendly landscaping as the statute defines it, which includes proper maintenance and design. An unmaintained yard of volunteer weeds is not Florida-friendly landscaping because someone says it is. The association may still require a plan, may still require that the plan reflect the listed principles, and may still enforce maintenance standards against a yard that has simply been abandoned.

Artificial turf and the not-visible rule

Section 720.3045 is short and it is frequently overlooked. Regardless of any covenants, restrictions, bylaws, rules or requirements of an association, and unless prohibited by general law or local ordinance, an association may not restrict parcel owners or their tenants from installing, displaying or storing any items on a parcel which are not visible from the parcel's frontage or an adjacent parcel, an adjacent common area or a community golf course. The statute lists examples, and artificial turf and vegetable gardens are two of them.

So artificial turf in a fenced rear yard that no one can see from the street, the neighbor's lot, the common area or the golf course is outside the association's reach, whatever the declaration says. Artificial turf in a front yard is not, and remains subject to whatever the documents provide.

The operative question is visibility, and it is a question of fact the board should answer before the letter goes out rather than after. Send someone to look from the four vantage points the statute names, in the season the vegetation is thinnest, and photograph what is visible. That photograph decides most of these cases and costs the association nothing.

Note also the local-ordinance clause. Section 720.3045 applies unless prohibited by general law or local ordinance, so a municipal restriction on artificial turf, which several Florida cities have adopted, survives the statute. Check the county or city code before telling an owner the association has no say.

Vegetable gardens

Boards regularly hear that Florida law protects vegetable gardens. It does, in two narrow ways that do not add up to what owners think.

Section 604.71(2) provides that except as otherwise provided by law, a county, municipality or other political subdivision may not regulate vegetable gardens on residential properties. That statute preempts local government. It says nothing about associations, and it does not limit a covenant.

Section 720.3045 is the provision that actually reaches associations, and it protects a vegetable garden only where the garden is not visible from the frontage, an adjacent parcel, an adjacent common area or a community golf course. A raised bed in the front yard of a corner lot is visible from at least two of those and is fair game for the declaration.

The sensible board policy is to say so plainly in the community's landscape standards: rear-yard gardens screened from the listed vantage points are permitted without application, front-yard gardens require approval under the ordinary standard. That is accurate, it is easy to administer, and it removes the argument.

Trees and local tree ordinances

Tree disputes come in two forms: an owner who removes a tree the covenant required, and an owner who wants to remove a tree and says the law entitles him to.

The statute usually cited is section 163.045, titled tree pruning, trimming or removal on residential property. It provides that a local government may not require a notice, application, approval, permit, fee or mitigation for the pruning, trimming or removal of a tree on residential property where the owner obtains documentation from an arborist certified by the International Society of Arboriculture, or a Florida licensed landscape architect, that the tree presents an unacceptable risk to persons or property. Subsection (4) excludes delegated mangrove protection authority under sections 403.9321 through 403.9333.

Read who it binds. Section 163.045 restricts local governments. It does not mention associations and does not limit a covenant. An owner who obtains an arborist letter has removed the county permit obstacle. He has not obtained the association's approval, and if the declaration requires approval to remove a specimen tree, it still does.

That said, a board that denies removal of a tree an ISA-certified arborist has documented as an unacceptable risk is choosing a bad set of facts. If the tree then falls, the association has a written record that it was told. The better practice is to approve removal on the arborist documentation and to require replacement with a specified species and caliper, which preserves the canopy standard the covenant was protecting.

Irrigation, water shortage orders and the green turf covenant

This is the conflict that arrives every dry season in Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties. The declaration requires each owner to maintain a healthy, irrigated lawn. The South Florida Water Management District has declared a water shortage and limited irrigation to one day a week. The turf browns. The association sends violation letters.

Section 373.246 authorizes a water management district governing board, or the department, to declare that a water shortage exists and to impose restrictions on one or more classes of water use as necessary to protect the water resources. Section 373.185(3)(b) then closes the loop from the association side: a deed restriction or covenant may not create any requirement or limitation in conflict with a water shortage order, other order, consumptive use permit or rule adopted under part II of chapter 373.

The consequence is direct. A covenant requiring irrigation beyond what the district allows is unenforceable to that extent for as long as the order is in place, and a violation letter demanding a green lawn during a watering ban is asking the owner to violate the order. Boards should suspend turf-condition enforcement for the duration of the restriction, say so in a community notice, and resume when the order lifts.

Two longer-term fixes are worth board attention. Amending the landscape standards to describe an acceptable dormant or drought-stressed condition removes the annual argument. And a community that keeps hitting this wall is a good candidate for the Florida-friendly policy described above, because drought tolerance is the point of the definition in section 373.185(1)(b).

Flags, and other things planted in the front yard

Landscape plans collide with section 720.304(2) more often than boards expect, because a flagpole is a structure in the front yard and front yards are where landscape standards are strictest.

Under section 720.304(2)(a), an owner may display up to two portable, removable flags, not larger than four and a half feet by six feet, from the listed categories, which include the United States flag, the State of Florida flag, flags of the branches of the armed forces, the POW-MIA flag and first responder flags. Under section 720.304(2)(b), an owner may erect a freestanding flagpole no more than 20 feet high on the owner's real property, and may display from it one official United States flag not larger than four and a half feet by six feet plus one other flag permitted under paragraph (a). The flagpole must comply with building codes, zoning setbacks and other applicable governmental regulations, including noise and lighting ordinances.

What that leaves the association is the perimeter: setbacks, code compliance, and the landscape bed around the base if the standards address it. It does not leave the association the power to prohibit the flagpole or to require it be moved for appearance.

Writing a landscape standard that survives

A landscape standard that holds up in Florida in 2026 does five things.

1. It is grounded in a covenant, not only a board resolution, and it cites the covenant by article and section.
2. It states what must be maintained rather than what must be planted, wherever possible. Maintenance standards survive section 373.185(3)(b); mandatory species lists frequently do not.
3. It includes a written Florida-friendly landscape approval path, with what the plan must show and how long the committee has to act.
4. It distinguishes visible from not-visible areas, tracking the four vantage points in section 720.3045, and it says so in the text so owners can apply it themselves.
5. It suspends turf-condition enforcement automatically whenever a water shortage order restricts irrigation, without requiring a new board vote each time.

Enforcement then follows the ordinary route. A violation letter, an opportunity to cure, and, if the violation continues, the notice and hearing process under section 720.305(2) before any fine or suspension is imposed. Our guide to covenant enforcement walks through that sequence, and the fining committee requirements are covered separately.

One last caution. Landscaping is the category where selective enforcement defenses are strongest, because the violations are visible from the street and easy to photograph. If the board intends to start enforcing a standard it has let slide, read our guide to re-establishing enforcement after a period of inaction before the first letter goes out.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes rewrites landscape standards for Southwest Florida HOA boards so they survive sections 373.185 and 720.3045, and advises on enforcement during water shortage orders. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Covenant Enforcement page.