At the beginning of the pandemic, I was anxious to maximize food production in every available space not already growing native plant habitat. That meant bumping up production in the walkway between our house and the neighbour’s.
Tomatoes, peppers and basil in the sunny walkway beside the house.
Herbs also do well in pots in this spot.
Next year, more kale!
I love this 3 Sisters planting in a front yard in west-end Toronto, and I love the sign beside it even more.
I’ve made a new friend: rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens, aka Capnoides sempervirens), a fumitory.
Rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens) in our front garden.
I’d vaguely known about this plant (I love all the fumitories) but had never grown it until this year, when Jonas Spring (aka Ecoman) gave me a seedling and suggested I plant it in a gravelly, poor-soil spot. I had just the place—a small sunny corner beside the wild blue lupine (Lupinus perennis). (I read later that rock harlequin grows in Midwestern oak savannas, too.)
I immediately fell for its lacy foliage, but it’s the delicate, tubular, bi-coloured flowers that really captured my heart: peachy pink and yellow.
My love for this little charmer grew even stronger when I was surprised by a little patch of it during a canoe trip at Point Grondine Park. There it was, blooming on some rocks at our campsite, and I felt such a deep connection between our temporary living quarters on the granite Shield and out little patch of garden at home.
Rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens) at Point Grondine Park.
Very much hoping that this biennial self-seeds and shows up in the garden again next year.
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.
Haapy Pride everyone!
And just for fun, a Pride flag of native plants that are larval hosts for swallowtail butterflies!
From left to right:
Paw paw (Asimina triloba), host for zebra swallowtail
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), host for eastern tiger swallowtail
Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), host for spicebush swallowtail
Hop tree (Ptelea trifoliata), host for giant swallowtail
Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), host plant for eastern tiger swallowtail
Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla), host plant for pipevine swallowtail
I’ve long wanted to do a demonstration planting of native sedges—gorgeous, totally undervalued plants—as a low-maintenance alternative to lawns. So when an opportunity for a public space arose, I jumped at the chance.
Say hello to a boulevard in the west end of Toronto that is now home to the project Sedges Instead!
I solarized this bed for about a month and a half to suppress the abundant weed crop prior to planting.
The first small bed has now been planted with awl-fruited sedges (Carex stipata). Thank you to Lara Mrosovsky (of Miinikaan Innovation & Design) and Ryan Godfrey (of World Wildlife Fund—Canada) for rescuing these plants and passing them along.
Seeing the awl-fruited sedges sway in the wind, with their graceful blades, is a delight.
Awl-fruited sedge in the small, unsolarized bed to which I added new soil.
A bigger bed is being solarized in preparation for a mid-summer planting of many more great sedges and native pollinator plants!
The beds will be a “seed orchard” and the seeds will be collected for distribution to community projects and growers in order to propagate more sedges and make them available for plantings. Not only are sedges rare in gardens, but they’re also rare in the nursery trade. This project is a small part of trying to encourage the growing of sedges! Especially if you’re looking for an incredibly low-maintenance and ecologically valuable alternative to lawns.
(Many thanks to WWF-Canada and the Pollinator Partnership for supporting this volunteer project.)
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.
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).
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!
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.
There's a local patch of very entrenched knotweed (an invasive species), and I decided to do my bit by cutting the expanding shoots when they were young, and eating them. I peeled and stewed them like rhubarb, and they made a delicious compote. Added to oatmeal; also mixed it with whipped cream for a great dessert. Tastes a lot like rhubarb. (Only pick from areas you know aren't sprayed with herbicides!)
A local abandoned lot is full of knotweed.
I removed the leaves and peeled the young stalks.
After stewing the stalks with some sugar and water, I added whipped cream and topped the dessert with some redbud flowers.
It’s heartbreaking to do presentations about the importance and value of planting native plants and to know that people will leave the presentation excited but having an impossible time finding native woodland plants for sale at nurseries. These plants take such a long time to grow…they are precious beyond words.
At the same time, woodland sites are being destroyed left, right and centre for development, and the plants they harbour are bulldozed, treated like garbage.
While participating in a plant rescue this spring, all I could think was that somehow we need to fix this.
It simply must be a regular feature of the development process that plants are salvaged and distributed to public projects.
Hundreds of the delicate spring ephemeral toothwort, a native woodland plant that is rarely available at nurseries and yet that many gardeners would love to plant, would have been bulldozed if they hadn’t been rescued at this site.
I know that some people worry that something like this would encourage more habitat destruction. Folks, it’s already happening and the pace is relentless.
If a site can’t be saved, its plant bounty should be, at the very least.
I’m not sure where to start with this, or who else is working on a policy to fix this madness, but I feel a project brewing…
A drop in the bucket…
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.
“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!
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.
This is the state of the public boulevard where I’ve planted the Sedges Instead beds. I seem to gravitate towards impossible sites!
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.
The surrounding trees, non-native black locusts, spread like mad, sprouting up everywhere with their thorny protection.
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.
Nina-Marie Lister’s meadow garden was given a Notice of Violation by the City of Toronto.
This gardener was ordered to remove her native goldenrod.
The goldenrod in the native plant garden above has been ordered cut by October 5, 2020, or the City of Toronto will mow it down and charge the gardener. Goldenrod is a native plant of significant pollinator value, does not cause hayfever, and is not on the provincial Noxious Weeds list.
In a different incident, Nina-Marie Lister was recently notified by the City of Toronto that her ecologically valuable and carefully nurtured meadow violates the grass and weeds bylaw.
These are just two examples of the ways that the City’s grass and weeds bylaw is enforced arbitrarily, places barriers in the way of natural gardens, punishes gardeners who are taking positive environmental action, and contradicts the City’s own progressive Biodiversity Strategy and Pollinator Protection Strategy.
On October 1, 2020, close to 80 organizations and allied professionals endorsed a public letter to the City urging reform of the grass and weeds bylaw.
“While we recognize and support the City’s leadership on biodiversity protection through its Pollinator Protection Strategy and the Biodiversity Strategy, we are concerned that the City effectively undermines this progress by allowing the outdated grass and weeds bylaw to persist,” says urban planner and landscape ecologist Nina-Marie Lister, co-author of the public letter and steward of the meadow in the photo above.
“Twenty-five years after the Ontario Court of Justice ruled that Sandy Bell’s naturalized garden was protected expression under the Charter, the City continues to place barriers in the way of positive action undertaken by those who create natural gardens,” says Lorraine Johnson, co-author of the public letter and author of numerous books on native plant gardening.
Dr. Lister’s lawyer, David Donnelly, has written to Mayor John Tory and the City Legal Department declaring the bylaw illegal, and of no force and effect.
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.
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?!”
