Height Limits for Lawn Grass

Back in the 1990s, I went on a mission to measure and photograph the lawns of City of Toronto Councillors. Many were on the cusp of legality.

Like many municipalities, Toronto regulates the height of lawn grass at 20 cm (8 in). It’s the main method the City uses to ensure maintenance of “neglected” yards.

Why do we care how high someone’s lawn grows? I’m asking this in all seriousness.

It’s useful to consider what threats unmaintained lawn pose.

One often hears that long lawns harbour rodents, but this is not specific to long lawns—it’s specific to hiding places and garbage and rodent food and living in cities. And at any rate, most municipalities already have bylaws that mandate rodent control, so if a neglected yard is a rat factory, there are existing mechanisms that cities (and neighbours) can enlist to deal with the problem.

However they are dressed up, height restrictions for lawn grass are purely and simply aesthetic regulations used as a convenient stand-in for an altogether different issue: neglect as a threat to “property value.”

The whole idea of a property’s value is constructed by social agreement. A long lawn can be said to diminish a property’s value only because we (whoever that is) agree that it does.

What would happen if we instead valued a yard according to its ecological value? Long lawn grass, allowed to flower and feed insects with pollen and nectar, would win every ecological contest compared to manicured lawns if one were to measure insect value, water use, energy use herbicide use…

It’s more than a theoretical question to ask why we care how high someone’s lawn grows. The answer has consequences—on the ground.

Cute Name, Cuter Plant

One of the toughest of the tough, field pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta) is a great alternative to lawn grass in sunny conditions. It will hold up to a bit of foot traffic (though not a baseball game or anything rigorous!) and spreads with virtually no maintenance.

Bonus: it’s drought tolerant!

American lady laying eggs of pussytoes. Photo by Mary Denington, used with permission.

Another bonus: it’s a larval host plant for the American lady butterfly!

So here’s an idea: remove some lawn area that you don’t use very much, plant some pussytoes, and grow some butterflies.

Field pussytoes and prairie smoke (Geum triflorum)

Field pussytoes (Antennaria neglecta)

Height: 4 in to 12 in

Flowers: white

Blooming period:early to mid-spring

Exposure: sun to partial sun

Soil:regular to dry; drought tolerant

Specialist pollinator interactions:larval host for American painted lady butterfly, everlasting bud midge, everlasting tebenna moth

Good combinations: prairie smoke, pearly everlasting, golden Alexanders, wild strawberry, blue-eyed grass

This drought-tolerant native is a good choice if you’re looking for a low-growing groundcover for sunny conditions. Unlike most native meadow species, not only does field pussytoes stay short, but it also blooms in spring. The white flowers, which are visited by bees and flies, complement the plant’s silvery foliage, and the fluffy seedheads are also decorative. Use it at the front of the border so it doesn’t get lost in the exuberant growth of surrounding plants. A bonus—field pussytoes does just fine in poor soil. And yes, as its common name suggests, the flower clusters at the end of the flowering stalks do, indeed, look like a cat’s furry paw. A closely related native species is plantain-leaved pussytoes (A. parliniissp. fallax).

Emergence Through Leaves

I often hear from people who worry that if they leave the leaves on their beds over the winter that the plants won’t be able to grow through this thick layer. Here’s some garden proof that woodland plants will emerge just fine! And I adore this combination of wild ginger (Asarum canadense) and naidenhair fern (Adiantum peltatum). I piled dead leaves on the bed in the autumn, left them over the winter, and didn’t do a thing to the bed in the spring—I just let the plants do their thing!

The Backyard: Originally and Now

When I first moved in, eleven years ago, the backyard had a few trees (a sugar maple, redbud and chokecherry), a largish area of lawn, and some non-native shrubs and perennials.

April 2010

A July 2010 visit with my niece Deanna and nephew Christopher in my new backyard.

Rather than cut the grass, I grew pumpkins in the lawn.

And I planted native trees and shrubs, lots of them: sycamore, eastern hemlock, eastern white cedar, serviceberry, pussy willow, alternate-leaved dogwood, 3 paw paws, 3 staghorn sumacs, and American chestnut. (A blue beech came later.)

For the next few years, while the trees were growing and there was still lots of sun, I didn’t really start transforming the understory. I grew a lot of vegetables instead, some in raised beds.

As the trees filled in, the yard started to feel like a forest, and years of building the soil with loads of dead leaves ensued that native woodland perennials could thrive.

Here’s the backyard woodland garden in mid-June this year.

The sycamore, which I planted in 2010 (and can be seen in the photo before this one, in the foreground on the right, with light green leaves), is now the 40-foot-tall beauty with a big honking trunk in this photo. I’m amazed by how much it has grown in just 11 years.