With a metre of snow piled in front of my house, the plants beneath it aren\u2019t exactly top of mind. The heath and New England aster, goldenrod and milkweed are tucked away for the winter but will re-emerge in all their glory come spring. They\u2019ve only been there for a few years now, gradually overtaking the sod that covered our yard when we moved in. We let it go wild, and wild it has gone.<\/p>\n
Should I be worried about contravening a city bylaw<\/a> limiting grass and weeds to 20 centimetres high? Maybe \u2014 if you stuck a school ruler in our garden in full bloom, you\u2019d likely never find it again. But the regulation doesn\u2019t seem to be heavily enforced, at least by my eye, nor is it clear on what constitutes a weed. I hope the species we\u2019re growing, which are refuges and resources for pollinators, would be exempt. <\/p>\n But there are certainly some dandelions lingering among the plants \u2014 bees like them too, you know! \u2014 and you\u2019ll definitely find clover, a great nitrogen fixer but also considered a weed by many. But enough about my garden, because I certainly don\u2019t want to encourage a neighbour to complain and a bylaw officer to come knocking \u2014 or mowing.<\/p>\n Because that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening in other Ontario municipalities.<\/p>\n Despite the biodiversity crisis we find ourselves in as a nation<\/a> \u2014 and around the world<\/a> \u2014 diverse, natural gardens are being extinguished by some people\u2019s preference for their neighbours\u2019 lawn to be tidy and uniform.<\/p>\n In Burlington, the Barnes family saw their naturalized garden \u2014 which included many of the same species I have, and more \u2014 razed by the city<\/a> after repeated warnings and threats of fines if they didn\u2019t trim it back themselves.<\/p>\n According to the city, the Barnes\u2019 garden didn\u2019t warrant the title of a naturalized space that would be immune to the 20-centimetre rule (apparently this is a commonly agreed-upon height for plants), despite it being popular with bees and butterflies. Much of the city\u2019s argument, according to recent reporting on the case by the Toronto Star<\/a>, appears to rest on the perceived lack of maintenance in the Barnes\u2019 garden.<\/p>\n So the city threatened a $10,000-a-day fine, on top of a flat $100,000 fee, until the plants were trimmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, the City of Burlington is taking Karen Barnes to court in March for up to $400,000 of those fines, after city crews destroyed the garden she carefully cultivated \u2014 several times.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Barneses aren\u2019t alone in their fight.<\/p>\n As the Toronto Star reported<\/a>, Mississauga resident Wolf Ruck won a years-long battle earlier this month, when a judge ruled the city\u2019s bylaw specifying grass height and weed-control requirements are unconstitutional. It also meant Ruck was not on the hook for the city\u2019s costs after it mowed down his naturalized garden, just as Burlington did to the Barnes\u2019 garden. The bylaw, the judge found, was an infringement upon Ruck\u2019s right to freedom of expression. And there are several<\/a> other<\/a> examples of bylaws across the province restricting garden growth \u2014 and cases where residents crossed their city\u2019s limit.<\/p>\n Yet, most of us don\u2019t live under the rule of a homeowner association \u2014 a type of community organization common in the U.S., and less so in Canada, that collects dues from its members (residents in these communities don\u2019t have an option to forgo membership) and can dictate everything from the colour you paint your house\u00a0to shed size to garden aesthetics.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here, if my next-door neighbour wants to paint their house hot pink, they can do it and I can live with it. They\u2019re not harming anyone. So why are garden choices still not a homeowner\u2019s alone?<\/p>\n Beyond the subjective matter of aesthetic preferences, native plants \u2014 and many so-called \u201cweeds\u201d \u2014 store planet-warming carbon dioxide, provide pollen for insects<\/a> at the foundation of our food systems and require less water and maintenance than a lawn. It\u2019s why a lot of cities, Burlington and Mississauga included, have planted their own pollinator gardens.<\/p>\n Cracking down on people who want to let their own garden grow naturally is a waste of time for municipal staff, and money for taxpayers. Court cases aren\u2019t cheap and neither are staff hours.<\/p>\n