Whatever you are doing with your yard, or with a place you keep with your neighbors, this is how we help.
We used to think the best way to help a front yard was to build it and hand it over finished. The help that matters most turned out to be what a yard can draw on: people who know, neighbors who share, a way to afford the work, and someone beside you when it is questioned. The same is true of a park, an esplanade or a garden that a few neighbors keep together: it needs all of that, and the other groups nearby to compose with. Take what you need. Most of it is free, and none of it asks you to hire us.
Who this is for
A front yard
A household and the ground in front of it: a homeowner, a renter with the landlord's yes, a corner store, a church or a school with a strip at the street. You want it to hold water, feed something and look cared for, and you should not have to carry it alone. Everything on this page is for you.
A shared place
A small group keeping a place together: the friends of a park or a trail, a civic club or a neighborhood association with an esplanade, an entrance or a pocket park, a garden at a church or a school, or three neighbors who have only talked about it so far. A group like yours can rarely afford a designer, a record that outlasts its officers, or the paperwork a program asks for. We bring those, and the other groups doing the same nearby, so that what you plant can be composed with what they plant. Where an item below is for a group, or only for a yard, it says so.
We never check work we built. If Holon put the plants in, Holon does not get to say they are thriving.
Open means open on October 1, 2026. Being prepared means designed and not yet offered.
You do not need a plan to begin, or a goal.
You need to know what grows here, what the rules ask, and someone to talk it through.
A Site Conversation
Someone from Holon comes to your yard, listens, and leaves you with a clear next step. Free, with no obligation.
OpenAsk for one
A walk of the shared place
Someone from Holon walks the park, the esplanade or the lot with the people who keep it, listens, and leaves the group with a clear next step it can bring to the city or to its members. Free, with no obligation.
OpenFor a shared placeAsk for one
The plant library
Which plants belong here, when they bloom, what they feed, and which to keep away from children and pets.
With a free accountOpen the library
The Ask Library
What Houston asks of a garden before you plan, buy or dig: the city, water, soil, protected species. One record at a time, each with its source and date.
With a free accountRead what applies
Your garden card
A record of what your yard holds, season by season, in your own account. Set a direction if it helps you. A garden needs no objective to be worth keeping.
With a free accountStart your card
A starter kit
Plants that belong here, chosen by a naturalist to start a first bed, added to your garden card in one step.
With a free accountStart with the kit
A garden planner
Someone who knows the order, the people and the Saturdays for your yard, the way a wedding planner does for a day. The yard, and every decision in it, stay yours.
Being prepared
A garden should not wait for a windfall.
Split the cost, share the work, or let the people who love you give the garden itself.
Do it together
Your hands and your street's, with us guiding: the least expensive path, and for many the best one. More hands do not only lower the bill; the value stays where the work happened.
Four payments
Any garden can be split into four payments at no interest, and larger projects are billed by phase.
OpenEvery way to pay
A garden registry
For a wedding, a new baby, a retirement or a new home, friends and family can give the garden itself. Holon designs and installs it in your name. Registry gifts pay for a service and are not tax-deductible.
OpenFor a front yardStart a registry
Free access
If a membership is out of reach, our free-access initiative covers one, and a Site Conversation, for your household.
OpenFor a front yardApply
Build it with us
If you want hands, Holon's own paths run from a conversation to a build, billed by phase.
OpenTalk it through
A plan the group could not hire alone
A planting plan for the shared place, drawn with the group, in the order the group can afford and billed by phase, so that a park or an esplanade does not wait on a designer the group cannot hire.
OpenFor a shared placeTalk it through
Transitional stewardship
For a business or an institution: a property moved from a maintenance contract to care planned over years, at the pace its budget allows.
OpenWrite to us
Make the care visible.
A garden of this place can look untidy in the months that matter, and most objections are about whether a yard looks cared for. We help you show that it is.
A report of your yard
A printable report of what your garden holds and what it does, in plain words, for your neighbors and your association.
With a free accountStart your record
Help when your association objects
Tell us what they said. We help you answer in writing, with the plan and the reasons, at no cost. We are not lawyers and do not represent you.
OpenFor a front yardTell us
The paperwork a program asks for
A plan to show the city or the district, a letter that says what the group keeps and why, and, where a program answers only a nonprofit, a way for an informal group to apply beside one.
Being preparedFor a shared place
The rules on your side
The Texas and Houston rules a garden like yours can stand on, each with its source, in the Ask Library.
With a free accountRead them
A sign that says what the yard keeps
A small, well-made sign in the bed, in words and never a number: a cue to the street that the wildness is on purpose.
Being prepared
Most of what a garden needs is already on your street.
A spare division, a tool in a garage, a Saturday someone would give. We make it easier to find, and free to share.
The Community Map
Gardens, events, seed libraries, free offers and volunteer roles across Greater Houston, shown at neighborhood precision and never at an address.
OpenOpen the map
Share and trade
Plants, seeds, tools and skills between neighbors, free, under a name you choose.
Seed libraries
Borrow seed that suits this region, and bring some back at the end of the season.
OpenFind one
Hands, given and asked
Say what you would help with, and when, or ask for help on your own planting day. Friends groups, civic clubs and other small organizations post their opportunities here free.
OpenVolunteer
Events and workshops
Plant swaps, talks and planting mornings across the city, in one calendar.
OpenSee what is on
Composed with the groups around you
Two parks, an esplanade and the yards between them, planted for the same season and the same species, so that what each group keeps adds up to more than its own acre. The map already holds the pieces; the composing is being designed.
Being preparedFor a shared place
Paying each other
Direct sales between neighbors and local growers, a network for garden skills and a lending library for serious tools are built and waiting behind legal and insurance review. A neighborhood should be able to support itself with money too, and we want it done safely.
Coming
Where did it come from, and who touched it?
We ask it of every part of a garden, and we compose the build, where we can, from within a mile of your door. Where the mile fails, we say so: it tells us what Houston still needs to build.
Plants from nearby growers
Divisions, seed and plants from growers close enough to visit, named on the garden's record.
Hands and trades from the neighborhood
A mason two streets over, a neighbor who prunes, a welder for the gate: named, credited and paid fairly.
OpenAsk us
Art from local artists
Where craft enters the yard, the artist or the tradition is credited by name, and a share of the revenue goes to them.
Open
Where every part came from
A page for each garden recording the source of every plant, stone and hour, including the ones that fail the mile.
Being prepared
Your yard, for the block
Host a planting morning, a seed swap or a class visit in your front yard, and put it on the map for your street.
OpenFor a front yardAdd an event
The hard part is the second summer, not the first day.
Keeping is a relationship, and nobody should carry it alone.
The seasons on your card
What blooms when, what to cut back, and what to leave standing for the birds, for the plants in your own yard.
With a free accountStart your card
Neighbors on the heavy days
Mulch and planting mornings with people from the network, and a call away when a job is bigger than one household.
OpenAsk for hands
A record that outlasts its officers
What was planted where, who waters, and what was promised to the city, held by the place and not by the person who leaves, so that a group survives its own turnover.
Being preparedFor a shared place
If you rent, or you move
Many commitments come with wording to agree with a landlord, and your yard's record can pass to the next person who keeps it.
With a free accountFor a front yardStart your record
A yard like yours should not only cost you.
A landowner who protects a ranch receives a tax deduction for it. A yard that holds water, shade and pollinators on a city street receives nothing. We are building what changes that: money once the program's fund is cleared to open, and before that, help, materials, knowledge and hands.
A record of what your yard keeps
Held by you, in words and bands and never a number: the thing support can follow.
With a free accountStart your record
Neighbors who see the work
A few times a year, someone from the same streets walks up, looks, and stands behind what is there.
Being prepared
Support that follows the keeping
Support follows what was kept, not what was bought. What no one can do alone is worth the most, and it is shared equally.
Being prepared
Your garden, told
If you want it, your garden on the map with its story, in your own words.
OpenSee the map
The fight for public support
Texas law already lets a city favor ground that saves water. We can find no Houston taxing unit that has used it, and we are asking.
OpenRead the case
Tell us about your yard.
Five minutes, no obligation. A human reads every one of these and writes back within two business days.
Writing for a group? Say which place it is and who keeps it. The conversation is the same, and it is free.