While we were chronicling North Mankato's lawn war, MinnPost's Peter Callaghan was looking at a legislative remedy for conflicts like it in Minnesota. Good work.
We recommend reading ‘Native landscape’ bill would make Minnesota cities more pollinator friendly, one lawn at a time. A taste:
Blame George Washington.
America’s first president maintained a lawn at Mount Vernon, copying the style from English manor houses and castles. Being first in war and first in peace also, apparently, made Washington first in landscaping for Americans — at least the wealthier ones.
The love of the turf grass lawn has hardly abated since, so much so that it eventually became encased in law. Cities and towns across the country adopted ordinances to impose the ideal of the grass lawn, and then used code enforcement officers and fines to compel compliance.
This week, though, a Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling exposed a conflict between that standard and the desire by some policymakers and homeowners to swap manicured lawns for native plantings. In a ruling written by Judge Denise Reilly, the court found that North Mankato’s attempt to force Edward Borchardt to cut back his trees, bushes and grasses wasn’t legal.
Now, the chair of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Committee has introduced a bill that would require all cities to permit native landscapes. “We have it out there for people to take a look at,” said Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St Paul.
He called it a next-step in the state’s modest but popular Lawns to Legumes program, in which micro grants and how-to advice is given to residents who want to convert some or all of the lawns to native gardens that support pollinators, especially the rusty patched bumblebee.
But the program requires local governments to make sure their ordinances support such decisions. “You do have a lot of cities with ordinances that the traditional lawn is the standard. Having something different and having a diverse landscape is more healthy,” Hansen said.
Not a free-for-all for weeds
The state’s Lawns to Legumes program is less about the money that’s available — the grants are in the $350 range — and more about providing coaching as well as “social acceptance” of deviating from the standard lawn. “People are brought up through how many generations of taking care of a lawn versus how do I take care of a native garden,” Hansen said. “It’s another piece of the pollinator puzzle.”
But Hansen’s bill would not be a weed free-for-all. “Except as part of a managed natural landscape as defined in this section, any weeds or grasses growing upon any lot or parcel of land in a city to a greater height than eight inches or that have gone or are about to go to seed are prohibited.” . . .
Read the entire article. Minneapolis Democrat Scott Dibble is the author of the Senate companion bill. Blessed are the peacemakers, indeed.
Related posts:
- North Mankato lawn wars: Free Press publishes moving portrait of post-victory Ed Borchardt
- City of North Mankato takes care of its buckthorn problem in the worst possible way
- North Mankato lawn wars: MN Court of Appeals opinion reverses city resolution against natural lawn as unsupported by the record
- North Mankato lawn wars: resident maps buckthorn in Bluff Park, citizens badger council
- Another dispatch from North Mankato lawn wars: City removes buckthorn in Spring Lake Park
- North Mankato lawn wars: local man cuts lawn buckthorn suckers, sees buckthorn in city park
- Mankato Free Press: Borchardts' North Mankato lawn war case heard in Minnesota appeals court
- North Mankato lawn wars: City Council passes natural yards ordinance limiting pollinator habitat
- North Mankato natural lawn fight update: Borchardt sues city for public nuisance order
- Buzz kill: North Mankato Planning Commission not so much into lawns to legumes
- North Mankato declares “Monarch Wayfair” lawn a public nuisance from “infestation of the premises by plants, animals, and birds”
- Strib picks up North Mankato lawn police story
Photo: "Minnesota's Lawns to Legumes program is less about the money that’s available and more about providing coaching as well as “social acceptance” of doing something different with lawns." MinnPost photo by Andrew Putz.
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