I hope the city has figured out by now I’m not cutting my “weeds”. Gave me shit last year. The ordinance is so vague and allows the city to just go onto your property and cut everything down and bill you for the time. I fucking dare them.
Most of the time these local ordinances have exceptions for raised beds, and their definition of “raised bed” is so vague you can just line your yard with decorative bricks and declare the whole thing is a raised bed.
Alternatively you can have your property designated as a wildlife preserve, even in residential neighborhoods.
Our city (in Germany) gave us shit a few times, but it was because of our hedge growing onto the street. At a certain point I get it, you are responsible for your plants and if they obstruct traffic etc. Another hypothetical scenario would be where you have a bunch of invasive plants that the city tries to eradicate? But if they just complain about the aesthetics it is really pathetic…
Its purely aesthetics. They put it in because like a third of the “city” (like 5k people) is abandoned so they want to go on to those properties to cut everything down. Which is dumb because you have to poison the invasive weeds that are here to kill them. They just pop right back up if you cut them. But I guess thats how they keep the money coming in, they charge like $400 per hour. I manage my garden, its far away from the road, I pull or poison any invasives. But I let native plants grow. Old people just see plants that aren’t perfectly manicured and call the city. And nobody has lawns here, they want the entire city to just be bare gravel.
After a certain height your weeds aren’t providing any extra value to pollinators and are just inviting creatures that carry disease to hold up there. That’s why the city insists on cutting them. Just keep your weeds to a reasonable height, it still helps the pollinators and keeps rats from breeding incessantly. Untended to yards are shown to increase rats in the area. You don’t want the plague do you? Cuz that’s how you get the plague. (The last two sentences are hyperbole obviously.)
I hope the city has figured out by now I’m not cutting my “weeds”. Gave me shit last year. The ordinance is so vague and allows the city to just go onto your property and cut everything down and bill you for the time. I fucking dare them.
Most of the time these local ordinances have exceptions for raised beds, and their definition of “raised bed” is so vague you can just line your yard with decorative bricks and declare the whole thing is a raised bed.
Alternatively you can have your property designated as a wildlife preserve, even in residential neighborhoods.
Our city (in Germany) gave us shit a few times, but it was because of our hedge growing onto the street. At a certain point I get it, you are responsible for your plants and if they obstruct traffic etc. Another hypothetical scenario would be where you have a bunch of invasive plants that the city tries to eradicate? But if they just complain about the aesthetics it is really pathetic…
Its purely aesthetics. They put it in because like a third of the “city” (like 5k people) is abandoned so they want to go on to those properties to cut everything down. Which is dumb because you have to poison the invasive weeds that are here to kill them. They just pop right back up if you cut them. But I guess thats how they keep the money coming in, they charge like $400 per hour. I manage my garden, its far away from the road, I pull or poison any invasives. But I let native plants grow. Old people just see plants that aren’t perfectly manicured and call the city. And nobody has lawns here, they want the entire city to just be bare gravel.
Fuck that’s so depressing :( I wish you luck on your fight for a wild yard!
After a certain height your weeds aren’t providing any extra value to pollinators and are just inviting creatures that carry disease to hold up there. That’s why the city insists on cutting them. Just keep your weeds to a reasonable height, it still helps the pollinators and keeps rats from breeding incessantly. Untended to yards are shown to increase rats in the area. You don’t want the plague do you? Cuz that’s how you get the plague. (The last two sentences are hyperbole obviously.)