A Burlington homeowner is fighting charges over her “naturalized garden” of native plants in her front and back yards. The city is taking Karen Barnes to Provincial Offences Court, seeking up to $400,000 in fines for violating a bylaw order to cut it down.
Barnes is challenging the case on constitutional grounds, arguing her right to freedom of expression through gardening is protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
She says her garden supports pollinators, biodiversity and wildlife, reflecting her environmental and spiritual beliefs. She appeared for a pre-trial hearing on Wednesday and is scheduled for a two-day trial in November, according to her lawyer, Vilko Zbogar.
Zbogar says the case is about more than the fine. “Courts have recognized since at least 1996 that freedom of expression under the Charter protects natural gardens as expressions of profound environmental values,” he said. “For Karen, it’s also a spiritual exercise — tied to her creed and beliefs. This falls under Sections 2(a) and 2(b) of the Charter: freedom of conscience and religion and freedom of expression.”
Experts say naturalized gardens and meadows can attract far more pollinators than regularly mown lawns, while also using less water and improving soil health.
Damn I hope they win against the city. The typical law has to die, it’s ridiculously useless and detrimental to biodiversity.
Why should we have to maintain one type of plant which has problems surviving without lots of upkeep?
The term “weed” is stupid. Arbitrarily deciding that certain native plants are undesirable is such a colonizer mindset
I think the term is fine if you approach it from an “invasive species” mindset rather than an “undesirable” mindset.
I don’t know if it was intentionally done by my teachers, but that’s the impression I always got about the term since it was usually brought up in the context of introduced species of plants causing harm to native species. Stuff like dandelions and such.
I understand what you are saying, but growing up the term ‘weed’ was always used in the ‘undesirable plants’ sense and the term ‘invasive species’ is more accurate when you are discussing them specifically. When I first started gardening, the guy who trained me defined weeds as ‘any plant the client doesn’t want growing on their property’.
Stuff like dandelions and such.
Dandelions are a complex topic. While some consider them “Noxious Weeds”, other people recognize their value as important sources of food for insects, they attract pollinators, and they also release ethylene which is a gas that encourages fruit setting and fruit ripening, so they are sometimes grown as ‘companion plants’.
Dandelions are only weeds if you don’t want them there, like any other ‘weed’.
This is the real problem. Where the fuck did you find a plant only native in South America?
Mmh, I’d describe it more as self-centered in general, since there are plants the world over that get called weeds. “We don’t see any value in this, therefore it should be eradicated in favour of things we can use.”
It’s also, in the simplest way, incompetent.
All those weeds provide some ecological service in some way. If you look at my yard and note it’s covered in tall straggly white flowers, you could say weedy, and be right. I would clarify that wild carrots are helping convert our heavy clay soil into good tilth, and supporting a massive number of pollinators and pest predators.
And why would we put up with yellow dock going to seed everywhere? It’s the most nutritious chicken fodder, and it also gives tilth to heavy clay.
Don’t get me started about dandelion!!
there is even non-native plants that naturalized, but not invasive.
In favour of things which we have no use for as a status symbol.
Displaying a status symbol is a use—just a very poor one.
Your only comparing it to grass doesn’t help.
Ragweed can burn in hell.
kudzu, ivy, and any vine plants. although kudzu is now being combatted with the weevil.
F yeah, allergy brother/sister!
they usually use the term noxious weeds
HOAs in general and all the bs that goes with it like this “law” are a thing of the past and don’t reflect the current world we live in. Pristine manicured yards have caused problems across the globe for the underlying systems that keep the earth healthy and vibrant. We need to relearn how to live in the environments we find ourselves in, not cater them to our own self deluding fantasies of perfection.
HOAs aren’t really a thing in Canada, she is being taken to court by the city.
I am aware, I was alluding to the whole idea of it, which the city has taken the role of in this case. I believe it is ridiculous beyond maintaining house size for sanity sake. I get there is building code for things, why is there garden code? Stay out of my yard!!
HOAs are the invasive species
It sounds like they are, but thankfully they haven’t taken root in Canada.
Yes but also no. I agree but there is a big grain of salt to be had here. Yards like also help pests thrive too. Particularly ticks and rodents come to mind. Lots of hiding areas that are safe for rodents to avoid seen / caught. Easy safe pathways for skunks, raccoons, possums etc. Ticks are gona love the tall plants and moist conditions. Earwigs are gona be all up in almost everything that is there. If there is anything that grows fruit, well you vet your ass theres gona be way more paper wasps/balshead hornets/ yellow jackets etc. Is the increased pollen going to now cause more allergies for 8 year old Timmy next door? When winter rolls around all those wonderfull bugs and critters 100% gona want to cozy up in your 2000sqft home. From attic, basment, or kitchen Cupboard.
Eveyone seems to miss the fact that a diverse environment doesn’t only just attract bees and Butterflies. It wouldn’t be "diverse " if it did.
The big reason we grow grass and keep it short is for pest control.
ignoring the obvious fact that you’re effectively declaring entire clades of sentient animals to be basically biological waste because i know im going to make exactly zero headway with a human supremacist in this comment; if the primary consideration were pests, wouldn’t stones or pavement be a more ideal solution than grass with all the maintenance and upkeep that requires being baked into the law?
What the fuck. Really human supremist now.
be proud. get it on a t-shirt. let the whole world know. start a movement. keep killing animals in your basement. die an ironic death.
Grass seed is significantly cheaper and faster than stones and pavement. Grass also provides some water retention during rain, helping reduce demand on storm drains.
Yes you will not make headway with this human supremacist for the fact that I have zero interest in paying thousands of dollars in repairs. Because some coon decided to live in my crawl space and fuck my shit up. Or worse yet, have a rat chew up wires and burn my house down. Fun fact, rats love the texture of Romex wire on their teeth.
this human supremacist
i take it back. i made a very small amount of headway with a human supremacist
edit: “coon” tasteful, bud. fun fact, humans love the texture of gunmetal in their hands. hey have you considered maybe its your fault for living in a house that’s not built to resist invasion? modern materials and construction techniques work wonders in allowing humans to pretend the natural world they’re raping for resources doesn’t exist. but no, it must be the animals seeking shelter, they must be murdered for their inconvenient audacity of wanting to be fucking alive. because you have zero interest in paying for any alternative solutions. it’s not in your interest to have empathy for other living creatures. empathy is a sin. you didnt rape all those resources just to spend them on anything or anyone else. those resources are for you. that’s why god put those animals there and you in charge of them, because you know best.
i hope you seek shelter and are murdered for the attempt by someone who looks at you the same way you look at a rat.
i feel comfortable declaring centipedes, you know those ones that look like eyelashes? those are biological waste because they freak me the fuck out. every time i see one i have nightmares for a week i’m going to wake up with beautiful gorgeous long eyelashes, but they’ll turn out to just be centipedes with a thing for my eye juices. if they have any other purpose in the universe than giving me eye juice nightmares i don’t want to hear it
Oh, are you talking about House Centipedes? Great for controlling other insects in your house!
And also, at my current phase in my life, the closest thing I’ll have to some creature cuddling me at night.
i use wolf spiders for house insect control. currently Gary is on duty
That’s funny, my kids named the basement spider “Terry” and they take pictures whenever he shows up.
i fucking hate ants (hyperope, can’t see them til they bite my ass), and Gary does a good job of patrolling the spots they enter and eating them. he’s a cool dude.
This is some fucked up NIMBY shit. Outlawing local natural wildlife is something few cities would dare to do. What an embarrassment to Burlington.
Karen is a hero.
400,000 in fines? Fuck them. Even if I disagreed with her argument I would still agree with her for that alone. That’s just obscene.
Based Karen.
Cept for all those other Karens
Wonder how much this fruitless battle is costing taxpayers.
Only slightly less than the 400,000 they’re seeking in “damages” ffs.
People need to get ousted for allowing this insanity
Unfortunately many tax payers will support it, because non-standard property appearance drags down property values. Or people just get their panties twisted by stuff. Some of my city’s aldermen are trying to make it illegal to grow corn (technically “vegetable gardens over six feet tall”) in city limits because they have gotten so many complaints from neighbors. Having a food plant visible near a residence? The horror!
Corn is a garbage crop to grow at home. The height thing is kina dumb, because they probably wouldn’t bat an eye about sunflowers and roses up on a trellis. But corn basically robs all the nutrients in the gardens soil incredibly fast, starving the other crops. Also as produce corn is the cheapest and most abundant staple and to grow a some what substantial amount you gota give up a significant portion of your garden.
There is a house a few blocks from me that, due to the shape of their property, has no backyard, it’s all front. They have maybe fifteen young chestnut trees (bloomed for the first time this spring, but don’t seem to have set), hazelnut bushes between all the trees, and maybe a ten foot by six foot bed of corn. I think other stuff, too, but those are the eye catching things.
I have no idea what they think they are going to do with all those nuts once the trees and bushes start producing, or whether they are growing some interesting variety of corn or just find it entertaining to grow a supermarket variety themselves, but it’s their property and I feel like they should be able to do what they want (garbage crops included) without the city getting up in their business.
Meanwhile … it’s OK for the government of Ontario to sell off protected environmental habitats to mow it all down, dig it up and put up a luxury condo for a private enterprise to make money off while destroying irreplaceable natural habitat (irreplaceable during our lifetime or within several hundred years that is)
We should be encouraging people to plant and maintain wild habitat … not cutting everything down to turn it all into your person living room. It’s the outdoors that is shared with animals, not your personal property that looks like it has an ugly green throw rug. It’s a natural habitat and no matter what ideas, laws, regulations or rules you want to create or invent, nature will always take over and grow over it all, no matter how entitled you feel you are to the piece of property you call your own.
I live in northern Ontario where it’s hard to grow things. But I’ve adapted and now I grow a wild hedge of Caragana bushes (although not native, they are about the only thing that grow this strong in the northern cold environment)
I mowed down my ugly grass lawn to the dirt and planted clover and now my lawn is green all year long and I cut it only once or twice a year. Previously, I was cutting it every two weeks because of the tall overgrown grass and every month it would grow over with a huge bloom of dandelions, the lawn was literally yellow. As nice as the dandelions are, they only last about two weeks, then turn into the puff balls that leave behind an ugly lawn with headless flowers and tall grass. Clover grows low to the ground and never gets high, plus its a nitrogen fixer which means it actually feeds the lawn over time on its own, growing more clover with deeper roots making them all stronger.
This is also the second year I’ve grown a wild flower garden and this August was the first major bloom I’ve had. Beautiful flowers that are just starting to die off now. I’ll be planting more this fall and hoping for more in years to come.
Honestly, the lawn used to look like an abandoned lot before with overgrown grass and dandelion crops. Now it actually has colour, I don’t have to do much to take care of it and it actually has life, colour and interest to it all. And I don’t do a thing other than to let everything grow on their own.
Compare that to my next door neighbour who keeps a manicured lawn. His lawn is like a carpet with grass 3" tall evenly cut across his small plot. He contracts lawn specialists to cut, trim, aerate, thatch and fertilize his lawn at least four times a year. He spot fertilizes any foreign flower, dandelion or plant that appears anywhere. I’m sure it costs him a fortune to maintain it all … compared to mine where I spent some money and work up front but don’t spend much on maintenance annually, other than to mow the lawn once or twice a year.
This has to be the most inane thing I’ve heard this week.
Only question I would have is which path is she stood on in that picture? If that is a public footpath then there might be an argument that she should cut the edge back a little. Otherwise: The bees are happy, leave her alone.
HOAs are stupid. $400,000?!Edit: Not an HOA. Sorry.
HOAs aren’t really a thing in our country, unless you’re in a multi-unit building.
She is being taken to court by the city.
I have no idea why I assumed HOA. Sorry.
Thank you for the info.
Well, we all have varying degrees of parochialism in our local outlook.
Its the city not an HOA. We don’t have legally enforceable HOAs in Canada. You can volunteer to belong to a community HOA, but its nothing binding or legal. More like a club.
Thank you for the info. I guess I have HOA PTSD for me to assume it was an HOA. I read quotes and somehow I assumed it was HOA.
Sorry.
Common sense social organizations? In Canada?! Well slap my fascist regime and call me Cletus!
Because our country is a goddamn sick joke and we’re jealous as hell. gO Canada.
Yeah, we have some good things, besides “free” healthcare.
The closest thing to an HOA in Canada is when it is a shared building like a Condo, then we have a Strata.
It runs as a legal corporation, with some property (such as building, roof being common property, and some outdoor spaces being shared or limited common property) the difference is each year you get to vote in a new council (if people want the role) and changes to bylaws are voted on as a majority by the owners. Minor things 51% majority, major changes are 75% majority.
So if something like a “no yellow doors” policy bothers you, you just propose a motion to allow yellow as a building scheme for doors, and hope enough residents agree. Since the housing market where I live has such a high resell rate, its rare you’d be stuck with the same ultra staunch voters for every council.
That’s literally just an HOA, but only for multi-tenant buildings. Like, I get that you don’t have them for detached single family homes, but every aspect you’re describing is just how HOAs function in the US.
Some HOA documentaries I have seen about USA had them own the house or have right of sale refusal, and can have a say in who buys the property, with a strata here the sale is owner to owner, and strata is not involved other than notification and identification. You are bound by the bylaws created by fellow owners, but since Strata doesn’t get a say in the sale there is possibility for new buyers coming in to flip the old owners rules quite soon.
