I know a lot of neighbourhoods in US have explicit rules of what the lawn is supposed to look like, so in a way yeah there are literal rules against gardens.

Americans (Anglos or NW Europeans in general) have a lot of weird phobias such as intensely disliking fish, lamb, goat, (none of these in a vegan way) mushrooms, irrationally scared of bugs, very easily disgusted by things to the point of overwashing their hands, or the opposite where they don't wash their hands after literally stepping out of a toilet stall, also so disgusted by stuff that they refuse to pick up their dog's excrement and/or don't wipe/wash their butts properly (also because this is gay)

Both. My family lives out in the county. There's no rules as to what is supposed to done with the land.

So...They clear cut it. They'll leave a few small scraggly oak trees which will mostly all die in a year or two. It's horrible. They turn a beautiful forest into a dry desert in a week.

They'll misquote a local rancher, spout misinformation about certain species of trees to justify their horrible land management practices.

And then wonder why the area has less water and is getting hotter.

It's funny how, in my area at least, the HOAs are always stopping people from wanting to plant, and the people who can plant want to make it look like an HOAs wet dream.