Terrible Grass and Weeds Bylaws: Kingston, Ontario

It wouldn’t survive a court challenge, and yet it remains on the books and continues to be enforced every growing season.

Kingston, Ontario’s grass and weeds bylaw is a particularly heinous example of the vague, arbitrary, outdated and anti-ecological “propert standards” bylaws that municipalities across Canada persist in using in ways that discourage habitat gardens and naturalization.

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“Unsightly weeds”? Based on subjective aesthetics that the judge in the Sandy Bell court case ruled overly broad and unenforceable. At the very least, name the “weeds” that, for health and safety reasons, people aren’t allowed to grow. “Heavy undergrowth”? By what standard and when does a succesfully growing groundcover become undergrowth that’s too heavy? “Overgrown and unsightly” shrubs?! That’s a particular howler.

Ironically, the two groundcovers that the bylaw approves of to prevent soil erosion are two non-native species that are wreaking havoc in natural areas, and that some places in the U.S. have prohibited gardeners from planting because of the demonstrable ecological damage they do: ivy and periwinkle.

It’s way past time to weed out this bad bylaw, Kingston!

Urban Neglect as Opportunity

Cities are full of public spaces that are virtually abandoned, with no one tending to them, caring for them, giving them the love they deserve, taking advantage of the opportunities they offer.

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This is the state of the public boulevard where I’ve planted the Sedges Instead beds. I seem to gravitate towards impossible sites!

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The soil is basically compacted concrete, low in organic matter, and full of tenacious non-native plants that provide little in the way of habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects.

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The surrounding trees, non-native black locusts, spread like mad, sprouting up everywhere with their thorny protection.

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I’m determined to demonstrate that this boulevard can be brought into some semblance of ecological health and community value! These places call out for tending.

At this site, I am planting native sedges, along with other flowering native plants, with the hope of inspiring others to tend neglected public spaces.

Paris Rooftop Hens

At a high-end Paris hotel, where rooms run to the hundreds of Euros, there’s a flock of hens on the roof, a block away from the Eiffel Tower.

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During a tour of this most haute coop, the hotel’s manager, herself a very haute Parisienne, curled her mouth into an expression that mixed incredulity and pity (no doubt imagining the culinary deprivations forced by store-bought eggs) and exclaimed, “No chickens allowed in Toronto? Mais, pourquoi pas?!”

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