Turn this into something beautiful. Parking strips offer opportunities for unique design concepts.
A parking or park strip is a narrow strip of land between the sidewalk and the street often used as a right of way for public utilities and traditionally planted with street trees and turf. Although the municipality owns the strip, the homeowner is responsible for its upkeep.
Parking strips offer unique, if not challenging, opportunities for water conservation in the landscape. They can be as simple as a strip of low water use turf or gravel or an elaborate display of perennials, edible plants, and shrubs. Trees can be included as well. Check your city ordinances for plant height and placement requirements as well as for species selection.
Narrow strips are more suited to simple landscaping. Many homeowners fill narrow landscape strips with rock or minimal plantings such as a single species of shrub or perennial plant. Note that rock or gravel can increase surface temperature.
Interesting and unique hardscape materials such as tile, rock, or stepping stones combined with low water use plant materials can be used to make creative park strip designs. The neighbors may look twice!
Colorful flowering plants in a parking strip along a sidewalk in Seattle. Photo credit: edgeplot Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Xeriscaped parking strip.