Posted on 07/07/2009 5:38:01 PM PDT by fanfan
OTTAWA — Henry and Vera Jones have a dream of a new kind of backyard, one that is an oasis of nature. But that dream is threatened by a City of Ottawa bylaw that appears to suggest they should mow it all down.
For nine months the Constance Bay couple have been planning a new ecologically tuned garden on their half-acre lot on Allbirch Road. No manicured lawns to be watered, fertilized, cut and weeded. Just lots of flowers, trees and vegetables to create a sanctuary for wildlife, especially the kind that pollinate flowers.
They call it the Allbirch Pollinator Garden. The city calls it a violation under bylaw 2005-208.
A few days ago they got a registered letter from the city saying that their property is in violation of the city's bylaw because they had failed to remove heavy undergrowth, long grass or weeds. The city instructed the couple to cut the long grass on their property by July 8 or risk having the city do the job, then bill them for the work.
They were shocked.
They have planned their return-to-nature garden for many years. They used to live in Nepean and bought their house at Constance Bay a year ago. Henry was a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans and has accumulated a lifetime of concern about what we are doing to the natural world. Vera is an environmentalist who believes that caring for the natural world is a deeply moral issue and that the alternative yard being created is their free expression on that issue.
So their garden is no monochrome piece of Kentucky bluegrass. It's more like a meadow in training, with a diverse array of plants and wildlife. There are some paths mowed, but there is also tall grass, a lot of wildflowers, many perennial plants and trees. They have also planted fruit trees.
The Fletcher Wildlife Garden at the Central Experimental Farm has donated 140 plants and they are being installed.
There is no trimmed lawn because Vera and Henry Jones don't like how lawns suck up precious water, become ecological dead zones that fail to support insects and birds, and sometimes encourage soil erosion.
Their first year with the alternative garden has attracted lots of birds and dragonflies, frogs, pileated woodpeckers, a family of cardinals and large numbers of goldfinches.
Vera concedes that the garden is very much a work in progress. She says it will take many more months before all of the plants have filled in and grown to create a rich meadow that doesn't require watering or significant maintenance and is mowed only once a year, in the spring. When the garden is fully planted, they hope that people will come by and see it, and that the idea of an alternative garden that returns land to nature will spread.
But someone isn't impressed. The city got a complaint about the property and a bylaw inspector visited on June 23 before issuing the order.
Vera says to follow the city's order would mow down nine months of work in a few minutes. "This is anything but a derelict property. The city has more serious issues to deal with."
Henry says the garden project is an attempt to "leave something for the kids of the future," and to mow it down "would be a violation."
Councillor Eli El-Chantiry, who represents West Carleton-March, said Monday that he has asked city bylaw officials to hold back on the complaint until a supervisor in the department has visited the couple's garden.
El-Chantiry said the city's bylaws regarding property standards are a complaint-driven process and complaints cannot be ignored. The city doesn't want to see people neglecting their properties and claiming they are doing it for environmental reasons, he said, but if people are just gardening in a different way, that shouldn't be a problem.
The couple promises a legal fight if the city pushes the matter. They say they have a growing group of supporters, some with legal expertise, who want this new kind of garden to flourish. © Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Nice pics -nice yard. What kind of bird is that, because I saw one yesterday that looked just like it. I was thinking great blue heron, but it seemed more white than the usual pale blue. Hmmmm, great egret, perhaps?
I did read it. Bylaws are te same as what a city code is so they are in violation otherwise they wouldn’t have been told to mow it. Like I said they must not have bother to check before planning this and a legal fight will probably be useless if it specifys something like grass to be kept under 8” like our code is here.
Great Egret, Ardea alba. when we get a lot of rain they fly inland and hunt along the ditches. The rain gets the snakes and frogs moving, and the birds know it.
On our suburban PA property, we are mostly surrounded by woodland with 100 foot tulip poplars. We also back up to a stream. Although we mow our lawn, we have an abundance of critters from woodchucks to woodpeckers, deer and foxes. I could do with some sunlight to grow some veggies, but so it goes. We save on air conditioning, and we have lots of birdsongs.
That's the point of lawns. It keeps vermin away from the house and discourages predators from coming near.
There are too many nosy busy bodies in this country...No one minds there own business anymore...With so many laws on the books anyone can become a lawbreaker. Too bad its come to that....That's why any law congress passes can run over 500 pages in length...Same goes for some local laws...
LOL We had a 10.1 acres on the farm and only 1 crappy neighbor and I told my husband if he didn’t stop being as a$$ I was going to raise pigs the property line between our 2 homes...
I moved out here long before they even painted lines on the roads, or even paved some of them. Now people are showing up complaining about my little piece of wild land. To Hell with that!
(6) Lawns shall be kept trimmed and not be overgrown or in an unsightly condition out of character with the surrounding environment.
(7) Subsection (6) shall not apply to yards which have been landscaped or maintained with materials such as:
(a) trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses or flowers;
(b) decorative stonework, walkways or screening;
(c) any other horticultural or landscape architectural elements.
LOL! In the last place I lived, there was a fairly new suburb. One guy had bought 10 acres many years ago, and had his wild land and space for a camper and cb tower. The new neighbors hated it, and they all had very restrictive rules about what they could do.
Sometimes I think he just did anything that was outlawed on purpose. But he couldn’t be covered by any of the rules from neighboring subdivisions. Good for him.
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