Is there anything better than the feeling you get when the beds are all prepared and ready for planting?
Everything feels full of opportunity and promise. And weed-free!
The long view
I am planting this public boulevard site with native sedges and some native flowers with the hope of inspiring others to tend to such spaces and create habitat.
After working intensely for the past year on advocacy efforts urging the City of Toronto to reform its grass and weeds bylaw, I have really mixed feelings about the changes that City Council passed today. There’s a good thing or two in the revisions Council passed (to take effect in 2022), but there are still lots of problems. The devil is in the details of enforcement, and I’m not optimistic, given the enforcement track record, but we’ll see.
First the good: the “Natural Garden Exemption” is no more! It was flawed from the beginning, when it first reared its ridiculous head decades ago. The definition of a “natural garden” made no sense whatsoever—what it came down to, basically, was that a garden became a “natural garden” when someone complained about it…And then you were forced to apply for an “exemption” to the grass and weeds bylaw and be inspected and approved, but the exemption offered no protection if someone complained again next year.
But the worst part was that “natural gardens” were treated as some strange, suspect category of garden that was somehow illegitimate and required approval and permission. Retrogressive in the extreme considering the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis.
So good riddance to the “Natural Garden Exemption.” Especially since the courts had already ruled (in the Sandy Bell case in the 1990s and the Douglas Counter case in the 2000s, both of which I sat in on and wrote about in books and articles) that people had the protected right to create a “natural garden” subject only to health and safety constraints, not aesthetics. So, no more delegitimizing and disincentivizing exemption, yay!
Toronto gardener Sandy Bell was given a $50 fine for this garden in the early 1990s. An inspector said it was “excessively too high.” She fought the fine in court, and the case forced the City of Toronto to change its grass and weeds bylaw to allow “natural gardens.” (Photo by Lorraine Johnson)
In the early 2000s, Douglas Counter defended his native plant garden (in the boulevard) right up to the Ontario Superior Court. (Photo by Lorraine Johnson)
Despite his court win, Douglas Counter was forced to defind his native plant garden yet again in 2019, when a City of Toronto inspector warned him in a letter: “Please be advised that an inspection was conducted yesterday…the property is indeed in violation.” (Photo by Lorraine Johnson)
Another good thing about the revised bylaw is that it now lists prohibited plants. Goodbye to the vague category of “weeds.” Hello clarity. People will know the species they’re not allowed to plant. And the list of those species is pretty short and reasonable—e.g., poison ivy, ragweed, some non-native species that cause harm in natural areas…The list is open to regular revision, too, so there could be some transparency (one hopes) and consultation (crucially, Indigenous consultation) in formulating prohibited species.
But…
The City has not set even a minimal bar before it investigates complaints, and that means the complaints system is ripe for abuse. A front yard full of vegetable plants, or a tall meadow free of prohibited plants and free of sightline obstructions? Totally legal under the revised bylaw, but your neighbour could make your life miserable with complaints, and you could be subject to Advisory Notices and Violation Notices and inspections where you are required to defend and justify your totally legal planting. It happens all the time now, and it’ll happen all the time under the revised bylaw.
Instead, there should be some kind of minimal screening done at the point of 311 complaint, even the simplest of questions: does the garden include prohibited plants? Are there health or safety issues such as obstructed sightlines? Questions like this would weed out complaints based on “I don’t like it” or “I don’t like you.”
Bottom line: the revised bylaw is still based on the premise that lawns are the approved, desired response to bare earth. How else to explain the fact that the revised grass and weeds bylaw has raised the maximum fine for grass over 20cm to $100,000?! Laughable if it weren’t so chilling.
So, what can people do to bring sanity to enforcement? If you or anyone you know receives an Advisory Notice or a Violation Notice for a yard or garden that isn’t causing any harm, make noise, spread the word, enlist allies, reach out to those, such as myself and many others , who will help you fight it and who will shine a light on all that is wrong with the enforcement regime we’ve still got with this revised bylaw.
I’ve noticed that many gardeners are afraid of dead wood—not the dead wood on live shrubs and trees, which can be a sign of disease, but dead wood like old logs etc. used ornamentally, strewn on the ground.
My backyard garden is full of old logs and dead wood used decoratively.
Well, I’d like to advocate for the practice of including logs and other old wood in the garden! Our backyard woodland garden is full of decorative old wood that serves a crucial function as habitat. (Some of the old wood has sentimental value, too, but that’s a story for another time…okay, I can i.d. most of our old Christmas tree trunks in the yard, and I love having them there!)
It’s amazing to see all the LIFE this dead wood supports! Beetles, bees, ants, hover flies, digger wasps, decomposer organisms, birds galore! Fungi in every shape, size and colour erupt after every rainfall.
All this life is not something to be afraid of. It’s a sign that the garden is working!
I collect dead wood everywhere. Branches that come down in parks. Pruning from healthy trees in the yard. Branches that break off in windstorms. Healthy neighbourhood trees that have been cut down for one reason or another (usually a tragedy, as far as I’m concerned).
Yes, it’s important to avoid wood from diseased trees, or wood infested with termites, but there is a lot of healthy wood around for the taking. Arborists are another good source.
I use wood to line paths, to create focal points, to support floppy plants and a cup of coffee—there’s no end to the potential uses.
And every once in a while there are surprises. We have a salvaged log that’s been dead for three years, and every year it sprouts leaves (seeds land in its crevasses). Talk about the life force in action.
I’m not sure it’s even accurate to refer to “dead” wood. It’s slowly decomposing, supporting all kinds of organisms, slowly returning its life to the soil.
I love the way that death brings life to the garden.
Yes, I am that person who, when she hears tree work being done in the neighbourhood, runs outside (sometimes in my pj’s) to find out what and why they’re cutting. More than once, my questions have led to better pruning by the Hydro crew. (Stop hacking the main trunk, people!) I consider it a public service in defense of the urban forest.
I also consider it a public service that many arborist companies will give people free wood chips when you ask. Oh, and I ask! Most years, we get one big load dumped in the driveway.
And then I spend the next few days wondering, what have I done?!
And yet, miraculously, the pile gets absorbed into the garden without fail.
Sometimes, the wood chip disribution turns into a community event, and the neighbours bring their shovels.
Every year, after many hours of hard labour lugging the load to the backyard, I delight in the look and foot-feel of the newly replenished wood chip path.
