DANVILLE — It is a victory for two garden owners in Danville as the city backs down from removing it.
Jeremy Boggess and Kristi Church created a corner of the city into an accessible nature helper for people and animals alike.
However, the City of Danville cited the property with an ordinance violation “targeting overgrown vegetation and warned that if Jeremy and Kristi don’t tear out the garden themselves, city crews will enter their property, cut it down for them, and stick them with the bill.”
Chris Ingraham, a spokesman for the Institute for Justice, says the garden was protected by the State — so the city could not force Church and Boggess to remove it.
“The Illinois’ Vegetable Garden Protection Act was designed to protect gardens like Jeremy and Kristi’s,” he says. “Like the cottage gardens that used to fill the lots of the historic homes in their community, it provides food for them and their neighbors, shelters pollinators, and adds a splash of color to the neighborhood. We’re glad Danville officials came around to the same conclusion and agreed to follow state law.”
He says they “turned a hardscrabble corner of Danville, Illinois, into something the city itself honored: a working garden that feeds neighbors, shelters pollinators, and hearkens back to the cottage gardens that used to fill the lots of the historic homes in their community. In 2024, the garden won the Old Town Preservation Legacy Award, honoring their efforts to restore and preserve a piece of the neighborhood’s history.”
And it wasn’t just Ingraham pulling out all the stops.
“Illinois law could not be clearer: residents have the right to grow food and plant native flowers and pollinator plants on their own land,” said Benjamin Marsh, an IJ Litigation Fellow and co-author of a letter IJ sent to Danville officials. “Danville doesn’t get to sidestep that guarantee by relabeling a garden as a weed problem.”
And Ingraham argued that not only is it illegal to ask them to remove the garden — it would be taking away from those in need.
“The garden is designed to give something back to a neighborhood that needs it. Danville is a high-poverty community, and Kristi’s property sits in a light-industrial pocket a half-block from a Salvation Army,” Ingraham says. “Watching pedestrians walk past on their way to get food, Jeremy and Kristi planted a “snacking sidewalk” —strawberries, blueberries, and grapes that anyone is free to pick. Neighbors have thanked them for the fruit, and especially for the mustard and collard greens.”
And for Boggess, the garden functions as a way to treat his mental health as a former educator now disabled following rear-end collisions.
“We forget how much nature contributes to our physical and mental health until it isn’t there,” he said. “We’re on a busy road with trains nearby, but the sound of crickets and cicadas and toads makes everything feel calm.” He estimates the plantings have cut surface wind speeds in the front yard by nearly half.
In the end, though, Church and Boggess got their wish — their garden will stay and continue to grow in Danville.