Just received a violation from County Code Enforcement for one count of "Prohibited Growth of Weeds (grass and weeds >8 inches)".
Not surprised after getting my property certified as a Widlife Habitat with the NWF and the Delaware Nature Society, as well as Homegrown National Park. Participated in No Mow May this year to the chagrin of a few Boomers in my neighborhood, one of which I suspect was the monoculture enthusiast that filed the complaint. Guess they're no fans of my annual and perennial sunflowers, yarrow, woods asters, golden rods, bleeding hearts, violets,elderberry, and hydrangeas.
Regardless, I've already left a voicemail with the reporting Officer requesting clarification, started the appeal process, and intend to reach out to Delaware Nature Society assistance. Let the war begin. If unsuccessful with the appeal, I intend to go full nuclear and completely scalp, occulate, and wood chip all remaining lawn. There shall be no grass left to measure and fuss over.
I'm more than willing to receive any advice or anecdotes in regards to dealing with enforcement and hateful neighbors, thank you and wish me luck in the battles to come.
by Virtual-Courage6706
24 Comments
Mid-Atlantic 7a
I mean it looks like an unkept lawn so I’m not surprised. You should get rid of the grass. Having any sense of planning goes a long way.
Two things can be true at the same time:
1. You are right: the 8” rule is obsolete and does not take into account your desire to maintain a yard with wildflowers and native species that has a lot more ecological value than green concrete.
2. Your neighbour is right: your yard looks awful and unkept. It is easy to make the case that you are using “wildlife habitat” just as an excuse to neglect keeping your property in a presentable way.
You are swinging the pendulum too much to the other side.
yard is unkempt and ugly. landscape it. i am all for no lawns. this is just a Bad Yard
Sorry but No Mow May is stupid. Convert large sections of the yard to a garden bed with curves and have mowed grass pathway. Keep the native plants in the bed. Kill the turf grass in the beds.
I see no intention here. Where are the signs? Those help communicate to boomers and monoculture enthusiast.
What are those big foundation shrubs to the right of your door? You could do things like trim those and greatly improve the appearance of your yard.
If they’re native (can’t tell), they’ll still provide ecological value if they’re kept neat. If they aren’t native, you could replace them and probably provide more ecological value than that yard without pissing off anybody.
The problem with your approach to “no lawn” is that there’s zero visual distinction between your yard and that of somebody who has been in a nursing home for eight months, or that of a renter who just said “fuck it.”
You can have a native lawn and still have it look lazy. If you want people to encourage people to go native who aren’t already sympathetic, you gotta ease them into it. Your neighbor is further away from accepting native lawns than when you started.
Business in the front and party in the back.
My private back lawn is the wild meadow and my front yard is full of traditionally attractive natives carefully placed to show it’s intentional. I even established a native lawn of fescues, rye, clover, yarrow, and self heal that I can maintain at low heights that won’t offend the neighbors in the hopes it will make them reevaluate the monoculture life.
It’s just grass, get a grip. “Freedom”
I would rather see this lawn mown normally than it be in its current state. Looks like shit.
Hello! It looks like you have a patch of natives to the left side of the picture, I would mulch and border that bed so it looks intentional. If you have any other natives hanging out in the lawn I would also mulch around them. You can get away with a lot when you mulch! Lol
What are the advantages of letting the grass get so tall?
Man this NWF checklist must be super easy to accomplish then
https://www.nwf.org/-/media/PDFs/Garden-for-Wildlife/Certified-Wildlife-Habitat/NWF_Garden-Certification-Checklist.pdf
weird flex here, your lawn looks like shit, handle it. what did you expect here?
This is the kind of thing that sets the movement back
That has to be like 8.25 inches……
Reminds me of when I’d get a notice for dead patches of grass but then when I watered the crap out of it, got a notice for long grass. Definitely someone in the neighborhood who just wanted to complain. Back then I learned that you could use *anything* as a flower pot, including toilets and was tempted to put toilets with flowers in the front yard 🤣🚽. Never did cause tacky but made me laugh to think of it.
This just attracts tics and snakes. Mow your lawn or get rid of it and plant native plants. One or the other.
Guerrilla garden their butt
Fuck, I love the fire! Keep it going!
Why can’t people just mind their fucking business these days?
I hope you’re not just letting anything grow with no care. All that does is leave opportunities for invasive species to establish alongside natives. At which point you’ll have to kill all the natives just to remove the invasive plants once they take over
Looks like you didn’t mow your lawn.
Letting grass grow doesn’t do anything to actually help the ecosystem—getting rid of it and replacing it with native plants is the way to go.
In the meantime, you should mow it.
At least they give you a picture of the infraction.
My city just sends me a letter saying “trim your yard” with no proof. The last one I got was dated a Tuesday when I had trimmed my yard the previous Sunday(purely to keep them off my back)
They are either slow AF at getting those things prepped and sent out, or their standards for sending the letters out don’t actually match the regulations they state.
I don’t understand why cities or counties care if grass is over 8 inches. This comment section is wild to me.