I grew up in a suburb where everyone was expected to have their lawns properly manicured and treated to prevent dandelions and other weeds. For about two years recently I lived in an intentional community, and discovered two things.<p>First, untreated lawns are beautiful. Different colors, gorgeous blues and yellows, emerge as different "weeds" take root during different times of year. Now, nothing speaks to me more of the blandness of the suburbs than its staid, boring green lawns.<p>Second, I had NO IDEA that grass reseeded itself if you just let it flower. In fact, I had no idea grass flowered. If parts of your lawn are worn by activity (read children), all you have to do is let it grow and flower and it will "heal" itself.<p>Yes, I know how ignorant I sound. But that's my point. Homogenous, controlled environments breed ignorance. And in more ways than a child's lack of basic understanding of grass as a plant.
At first I read "A mutilated garter snake, a sliced frog and countless slashed grasshoppers. That was the scene of carnage" and laughed. "Carnage indeed. Grow up," I said out loud. If people wanted to live in the middle of a bunch of bats and snakes and shit, they'd go live in the middle of nowhere instead of next to other people.<p>But then I looked up Alexandria, Ohio.<p>"Alexandria is a village in Licking County, Ohio, United States. The population was 517 at the 2010 census"<p>517! Wow! And they don't even live _in_ Alexandria. They live outside it!<p>So these people did go live in the middle of nowhere, and whatever counts out there as the agency of local dominion has decided that plots of land in the middle of nowhere need to be free of animals. Wooo boy.
This type of regulation should be the province of HOAs, which have covenants that home owners agree to when buying their homes. It shouldn't be part of state law, and this one sounds particularly over-reaching. Basic property rights should dictate that "nuisance" be clearly defined in a very limited way.<p>And she has an entire acre, at least 4x larger than the typical lot size. At what size does her property become a "farm"?<p>I live in Arizona and have a lawn. It's expensive to upkeep and requires a ton of water. Many homes in my neighborhood have "natural" landscaping, basically rocks and cactus. I would too if I didn't have kids and a big dog. Natural is much more environmentally sound, and should be encouraged, not fined.
True that..<p>What we find many a time, is that townships and cities have an extraordinary amount of power to cause problems for landowners. We all think only HoA's can do this... and that's blatantly not true.<p>What exactly is a nuisance? Right now in this case is an untended yard. It's also been "improper house paint color". Or too many vehicles. Or too much traffic. Or harkening to older worse times, "wrong skin color" (just noticed the photo... possible sigh).<p>But how much control should government have over private property? As long as I'm not doing anything illegal, they shouldn't have any holding on my affairs... But then that's the root of the issue, is with an Ohio law allowing control to townships with an undefined term "nuisance".
Leaf removal is similar and related. Instead of allowing the leaves to decompose and nourish the land, we remove them in a process that is often environmentally taxing and an actual nuisance. Big, diesel-burning trucks to haul away the leaves, leaf blowers running for hours. People are normally obsessed with living in a quiet neighbourhood, but I guess they hate leaves enough to set that aside.<p><i>Don’t Bag Your Leaves: An Analysis of Nutrient Loss and Soil Depletion for Leaf Removal</i> <a href="https://druidgarden.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/dont-bag-your-leaves-an-analysis-of-nutrient-loss-and-soil-depletion-for-leaf-removal/" rel="nofollow">https://druidgarden.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/dont-bag-your-l...</a>
A lawn is a little miniature farm, it yields a useless crop you maintain and ritualistically harvest once a week. Do it, or else...<p>I mean, some yards are for kids to play in, but most lawns are for nobody 99% of the time. I can look out the various windows of my home and spot about 50 yards and there's nobody in any of them. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon. When I do see people, they're doing yard work. We're so weird.
Article is from [2015].<p>When my friend found a baby bunny and decided to keep him, we found out it's illegal to do so. Which was shocking. But looking further into it, it made sense. These kind rabbits are nothing like the domesticated ones and almost always dies in captivity. An article I read said it happened 4-6 weeks after captivity and this one died in 7.<p>It's unfortunate the article doesn't explain what the 'nuisance' is in this case. But what was the reason to have such strict laws in the first place? I ask not because I don't like nature but one sided stories often appear shocking but aren't that extreme when both sides are figured out.
Why doesn't he put wrought iron fence along the sidewalk and a small sign next the gate thats says "Smith's Flower Garden" and tell the local officials to shove it and admire his beautiful garden.
I cannot speak to this case, but when our neighbor stopped mowing (out of laziness and absence not some sort of viewpoint), it seems that the number of mosquitos increased to nuisance level.
> main point of growing a natural yard is to attract wildlife<p>Is there a consensus on attracting wildlife to places where humans live? Having grown up in a place where every year at least one person in the village died from snake bites, I do not think I personally want to go back to those conditions.
One of the problems with such a lawn in an urban or suburban environment is it is the perfect environment for vermin such as mice and rats.<p>My neighbour has a small area behind their garage that has long weeds and grass. It's about 5 meters square but it's got loads of mice in it.<p>Even all the neighbourhood cats combined can't catch all the mice since the mice breed so fast. The mice have started to invade other barns and homes of neighbours but at this point the amount is controllable.<p>It's an older couple who own the property so people are not going to say anything. And it's out of sight but it's amazing how a little thing, grass area I mean, can blow up into a problem with so many mice.<p>The previous owners were junk collectors and lived in the driveway in an RV and only worked outside at night ever see The Burbs movie? Some people really want or need or should be in a home in the country but they can't afford to move.
A municipality's zoning laws (variations of residential, agricultural and commercial/industrial) usually preclude what you can do on that land. The restrictions could be further defined by ordinances and covenants recorded with the municipality. If neighbors are able to complain about her land usage, I would assume she is not zoned agricultural. Anecdotal Sources: I own a dozen or so acres on agricultural zoned land, surrounded by houses, which I keep as a meadow.<p>On an emotional level, I am repulsed by bleeding hearts who start an article with pathos for sliced sneks and grasshoppers.
Sounds like the author did something to piss off her neighbors. The city wouldn't get involved without a complaint, right? Sounds like one of the neighbors is a squeaky wheel...<p>To avoid situations like this either go to the city first and ask for an exemption. This shows them that you aren't some slacker, you're intentionally doing this. Offer to play wildflower seeds and such -- will sound nice. And get to know your neighbors. Send them a basket of cookies on Christmas... Tiff's Treats... they aren't very expensive.
In the grassy area along the interchange where I-74 ends and curves into I-80 there's a sign that says "Prairie Restoration".<p><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@41.597822,-90.5296289,166m/data=!3m1!1e3" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/@41.597822,-90.5296289,166m/data...</a><p>It's over grown with wild flowers and the like. I always wondered what it would take to have my backyard designated that way.
Lawns are a two-fold problem. First, they force you to waste a bunch of land on lawns. In our county, the minimum lot size is about a quarter of an acre. In our pre-zoning code neighborbood, lots are less than one third that size and everything works just fine.<p>Second, municipal governments make it illegal to actually do anything with that land other than wasting it as a lawn. Can't have chickens, can't plant it, etc.
I've had my house in Northern California for 8.5 years, and I've mowed the lawn perhaps five times, and I never water it. Normally I just let it do it's thing.<p>In the winter and spring it's full and green with beautiful white and yellow wildflowers, and in the summer and fall it's a nice desertscape with a few small shrubs.<p>With all the rains this year the green is lasting a lot longer than usual.
As a relatively new homeowner I absolutely detest the government trying to dictate these little things. There are many things a homeowner can do that doesn't look right, but so long as it doesn't harm anyone else, does not present a clear and absolute danger, I say leave them be. Another reason to avoid HOA's at that.
The closer together we live, the more we want laws to ensure quality of life. But laws tend to be black-and-white, no grey area.<p>This couple wants an exemption from the law, and it may be reasonable in their case. But that doesn't mean the law isn't for the greater good. Just that the law isn't highly nuanced.
I believe there was a supreme court ruling on nuisance laws....can't put my fingers on it at the moment. However, my recollection is that, as applied to noise, expect decibels had to be defined in the law for it to be legal. I assume something similar would hold true for landscaping.
Give people a tax credit to ditch their lawn. That with having a lawn tax (or excess water use tax) would be an effective solution to reduce what is generally a waste of water and a poor use of space, particularly in arid regions.
No one has mentioned chiggers.<p>Those thing will eat you alive in tall grass. I have 18 acres I don't mow, and don't live on. Though the house I do live in, in suburbia, I keep that lawn mowed to keep the chiggers at bay.
Semi-related to the article: how many people click 'like' on facebook 'save the bees' articles in the morning, then poison their dandelions in the afternoon? Here's the easiest/laziest thing you can do to 'save the bees': when dandelions are out in the spring, maybe take a one week break from mowing them down... and don't spray them with weed killer.<p>Dandelions are some of the first food available to bees in the spring after a long hard winter of shivering. Please help them thrive!
Sounds like a great YC pitch - engineer a more "lush" crabgrass that looks 99% as good but uses half the water, less fertilizer, and less care.
Where this piece loses me is when it starts advocating for a science based approach to setting standards for our lawns. I don't want to replace the suburban housewife lawn police with a new eco-centric version. Can't we just couch the argument in live and let live individual property rights? That way you can have your tall grass, they can have their trimmed shrubs, and we set out values at an individual and personal level rather than as a community.
In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Deus-Brief-History-Tomorrow/dp/0062464310" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Deus-Brief-History-Tomorrow/dp/0...</a> there is an interesting|amusing diversion into the history of the lawn iirc.
> I was afraid of what people would think, because Americans have been deeply conditioned to see their manicured lawns as status symbols.<p>I don't think insulting people who mow their lawns helps get her point across. I mow my lawn for obvious reasons: I like the way it looks, I like my neighbors, I don't like rats or hornet nests, etc. She'd be better served by trying to persuade me to reexamine the values that lead to not wanting big honking rats in my yard but she lost that chance when she implied I'm a zapped cow.