IF YOU want to know about your neighbour's politics, just peek over the fence at his front yard. According to York sociologist Allan Greenbaum, your lawn clearly states whether you're left-leaning, far right or somewhere in between.

"If you were going to guess whether someone is pro-choice or pro-life, you could probably predict it on the basis of their lawn," says Greenbaum who's just finished a 600-page PhD thesis called The Lawn as a Site for Environmental Conflict. He based his study on a survey of homeowners in the downtown Toronto neighbourhood known as Seaton Village in the west Annex.

The guy out with manicure scissors clipping the edges of his flower beds? He probably believes in hard work, responsibility, getting the job done and supports bylaws that limit the length of your grass. The woman with the wild flowers and herbs and an au naturale approach to Mother Nature? She's likely a left-leaning liberal, perhaps an artist or writer who believes neat lawns are boring and repressive.

Greenbaum divided lawns into five categories -- natural, ornamental (formal flower beds), ordinary lawn (some weeds, bare patches), manicured, and devoid of vegetation (parking pad).

Manicured types associate their lawn with cultural conservatism. "It symbolizes taking care, and not taking care is associated with abandonment, crime, urban decay. They're not opposed to using pesticides to control weeds. And manicured lawns tend to be next door to one another. They also tend to be men's lawn's," says Greenbaum.

Naturalists on the other hand oppose the city's old bylaw to limit grass height to eight inches and wouldn't use pesticides. "Their perception of the bylaw is that it's aesthetic authoritarianism, imposing conformity," he says. "It's about artificiality. Their value system has to do with freedom, diversity and being interesting."

And the bare patch weed folk? Ordinary, salt-of-the-earth, it seems. Says Greenbaum, "They're completely sociologically neutral."

Illustration: Ryan Price

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