Last year, I tried something that would help wildlife and pollinators on my property. I let the vegetation in my yard grow.
I live in a suburban neighborhood, and being a good neighbor, I spoke to each of my neighbors on the street before starting this (or, more correctly, letting it start). I explained what I wanted to do, why I wanted to do it, and how it would look. My neighbors, to a person, were absolutely supportive and thought it was a great idea. Many admitted that they were too conditioned to find a perfectly coiffed, monoculture lawn to be preferable, but thought my "wild" yard would be a nice visual and habitat break. I even spoke to the folks on the next blocks. All supportive. A few even said they just might do the same though none did.
After all, we have "green space" at the end of my street, through which a pretty creek flows and natural vegetation (native trees, shrubs, and plants) grows along it as a buffer. This small creek doesn't really have a name listed on any 24K topographic map going back to 1950. The topographic map before that is too small scale to show it. I just call it "our creek". We all know what we are talking about.
A small concrete dam (3 ft tall) behind one of the houses adjacent to the green space provides a swimming hole, mainly for the dogs, who frolic and play with abandon while their humans wade and supervise and throw balls. Children wade in the creek downstream, turn over rocks and explore what they find.
That concrete dam is a failed attempt to control the flooding this little creek experiences. Several additional houses used to be in its flood plain between the dam and the end of the green space at Armstrong Mill Road. Those houses were purchased by the city several decades ago and demolished because of the frequent flooding. The green space was created and represented to the residents in our subdivision to exist in perpetuity. However, just like the treaties with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island, which were supposed to last "as long as the grass grows", this green space has already been changed by the removal of a section of it that was given free of charge and with no tax burden (though the property was valued at $98,500) to the resident immediately next door to pacify here. Ahhh, our city tax dollars at work.... I'll call her Dee and there will be more about her later in the post.
Back to the creek. The flood events used to be fairly infrequent (several times a year) but now occur regularly (can be several times a month) as a result of the increasingly heavier and more frequent rain events caused by climate change. I'd love to put a stream gauge on this stream and document exactly what its behavior is before the city attempts to put its replacement, underdesigned sewer line next to it, and tearing up our green space, neighbors' back yards, and inflicting all kinds of noise and traffic issues for likely a year or more. Government contracts never finish on schedule....
So, why immediately next to the creek and not under the street? According to the water quality manager and the project engineer, "the stream is already at grade" and that is where the old (leaking) sewer line is. In other words - laziness. (I should note that the city government was forced into agreeing to a consent decree with the U.S. EPA for violations of raw sewage flowing onto the surface streets, yards, and into the storm sewers and creeks. Now, whenever storm events risk causing overflow of the raw sewage, the city issues alerts and urges citizens to report any occurrences to a specific dept, phone number provided. These alerts happen have been happening several times a month this summer.) Our creek empties into West Hickman Creek just across the street at the end of the green space, a larger stream that is designated as not safe for direct contact, so no swimming or wading. I no longer let my dogs swim in our creek and I no longer wade in it since the pandemic and the increasing flooding that causes raw sewage to exit the pipes designed to carry it and installed in 1950.
In conversation with the water quality manager in charge of the project, I pointed out that the existing (leaking) sewer line was installed before the neighborhood and all its houses were built and that digging it up and replacing it with new, larger-diameter conduit (only designed for a 5-yr flood event, I might add, which, due to the aforementioned climate change has resulted in such flood events happening more like every few months). I suggested to him, a city environmental award winner (not sure for what), the replacement sewer be placed under the streets - much easier for access, excavation, certainly wide enough to accommodate the under-designed 4-foot-diameter conduit, and easily repaired after construction is done not to mention easy future access for repairs. The advantages were many. No tearing up our green space, neighbors' back yards, increased sedimentation and runoff into our creek or West Hickman Creek and the ecological damage that will cause to the aquatic communities, and such, none of which can actually be remediated back to current condition, though the same water quality manager said it will be "restored" and possibly even "improved". When a government employee tells you that, ask him if he has a bridge in his back pocket he will try to sell you next. Because the city would not have to deal with all of that, the costs would be lower. I was politely thanked and ignored the first time. I was ignored each time after that until I gave up. At one point, he said rather sarcastically, "we are not amateurs at this". I responded with, "nor am I. I have been doing environmental geology work for 30+ years and I specialize in the geology of karst areas like our city and county. You don't have a karst specialist working for the city, so I have expertise you don't have access to on your staff." I was met with silence. I gave up after that.
Back to our creek and its revenge. Two of the 10 neighbors who back directly up to the creek upstream of the green space actually cleared that vegetative buffer and are reaping the results - shoreline erosion. One of them was Dee, the beneficiary of the previously described free chunk of green space, who had a particularly aggresive and active hate for all trees and shrubs along the creek and anywhere near her for that matter, including 4 big beautiful trees in the chunk of green space given to her that she promptly (within days of the property transfer) cut down. She had the branches of a 5th removed up so far the tree that I am not sure it will survive. One of the four now-deceased trees was a beautiful, majestic, old sycamore that was likely 100 yrs old and was beloved by all the neighbors.
Dee's back yard is immediately below the dam, its small spillway quite expectedly accelerates the discharge from the dam and the rock armoring the bank immediately adjacent to the dam causes a great deal of water turbulence, especially after floods. So, when Dee cleared all protective vegetation along the creek banks of her back yard, she started losing big chunks of shoreline and her back yard. I consider it partial vindication that she lost property to the creek, who lost buffer to her. Those plants and the creek were inexorably bound to one another. It must have been a painful loss for the creek. It certainly was for the neighbors. Part of me wishes that sycamore had fallen on her house and fancy sportscar.....
The neighborhood collectively was quite happy when she moved away in the spring of this year after tidily profiting from her ill-gotten extra land. We all collectively hope the nice couple who bought her house will let the buffer regrow for their own selfish motives (protect their property), though alas, none of us will see replacements for the several very old trees that Dee killed. The many younger trees and shrubs she gleefully destroyed will take a decade to return, if they can at all on the increasingly active banks of the stream.
Fortunately, through the efforts of one neighbor in particular, a botanist, with support from those few of us working to manage and maintain the green space, pretty much everything that grows in the green space, even in the section that is mowed for the use of the neighborhood kids, adults, and dogs, is native. Raccoons obviously frequent the banks of the creek judging from the piles of broken bivalve shells from which they have derived yummy and nutritious meals. One or several Great Horned Owls are often heard as darkness falls and during the night in the trees towering above the creek. I occasionally get a glimpse of one high up in the dead tree along the creek on the far side. Schools of little fish that flash silver in the sun swim in the ponded area above the dam as well as in appropriate places below the dam. Deer have been seen grazing in the green space at dusk, though not frequently. I have even seen a fox running down the street twice - the shape of its head and that distinctively bushy tail were clear indicators.
So, there is natural space in my neighborhood and the neighbors value it. What I proposed with my property was not a stretch then. By about mid-summer, knee-high native grasses pushed out invasives and soon their heads were waving in the sunshine and breezes. Bees, flies, butterflies, birds, rabbits, some opossums, racoons, squirrels, chipmunks, and probably others I never saw were having a field day, literally. Every window in my house revealed more awe- and ahhhh-inspiring sights. I certified my property with the National Wildlife Federation wildlife habitat as wildlife habitat and registered my property with the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge so that passers-by not from the neighborhood would understand what was going on in my yard. My dogs loved the tall grass and its cooling properties on the hot summer days, not to mention how much fun it was to sniff and root through it checking out who all had been there.
Nonetheless, in mid-July, a very innocuous, plain envelope with the city's return address arrived in the mail. In it, I received a citation from the Zoning czar's office or whatever that office is called (I think it is actually Zoning Compliance) . It said I had violated the zoning regulation prohibiting the growth of "noxious weeds" and that I had a specified period of time to remove said "weeds" and return to "compliance". I was furious. I knew none of the folks on my street or the adjacent 2 blocks had complained. Clearly, someone not of this neighborhood felt it to be her/his/their duty to insert a nose into my business and complain as they walked quickly by, possibly with the dog who had taken a dump in my yard the week before I got the citation and was left by the human with the dog, the human too lazy to bag it and carry it away per the law.
I wrote a polite but strongly worded letter in reply to the zoning enforcer, pointing out that everything on my property was NATIVE, in strong contrast to the 2 properties on my block which had chest-high vegetation that was most definitely not native. On the one property, it looked like the couple who lived there manicured it because it had a little path through it to the back yard and it had some flowering plants. The other property had pots of plants scattered amongst tall plants, excellent crops of poison ivy happily flourishing, not a flower to be seen, and about which many neighbors muttered to one another. How, I asked the zoning enforcement person, could my native plants that were certified wildlife and pollinator certified (as proudly displayed on the signs next to the sidewalk on the post of my driveway light), be considered "noxious"?
The citation did indicate that due to COVID, enforcement would be lax. Hmmmm, I seriously contemplated not doing a darned thing to my lovingly grown habitat. However, I was very confident the neighborhood interloper would be back to privately congratulate him/her/themself over the results of what they considered their public duty, see that nothing had come of it, and complain again.
I followed up with numerous calls and messages and even sent the letter a second, then third time. No response. Again, our city taxes at work (or not in this case). I waited until the last day of the deadline and still no response. I went outside and told all the living creatures what was coming, I apologized with a depth of feeling that I am sure they all felt. I prayed to the Grandfathers and I wept with Grandmother. With heavy heart, I pulled out my mower, and slowly and arduously cut it all down, alternately praying for all the lives being lost or deprived of cover and food and cursing at the interloper and the city.
Small comfort but appreciated were all the statements of condolence and sadness from my neighbors, who had also been enjoying all the critters big and small making use of my property. I have been dutifully mowing my yard at the highest mower setting resulting in vegetation that is about 4 inches tall. I don't care what grows as long as it can take care of itself, doesn't demand watering, or anything else other than the occasional pruning for health reasons. Sadly, this means that I have a number of invasives in my yard again.
I have a new plan, though, after reading about the Miyawaki Methodology of reforestation. Detailed instructions can be found in these two places: A Beginner’s Guide to Miyawaki Method of Tree Plantation and on Dropbox in the document that I was able to open and read without a Dropbox account.
I am going to turn my 0.24 acres into a native urban forest and enjoy the benefits thereof, including a definite decrease in heating and cooling costs, and the return of lots of wildlife. The Inner Bluegrass historically was oak savannah and cane breaks. Don't know if I want to turn this into a canebreak - the dogs will get lost in the backyard and I won't be able to get through it to find them! So many possibilities..... I hope the 3 redbuds that I planted along my curbstrip and the native honeysuckle that is thriving along the fence on the northeast side of my property will be enough to keep the pollinators coming. I checked the zoning regs, and there isn't a danged thing the city can do about this!
Maybe they will go back to enforcing other zoning regs, like the ever-growing crop of those little advertising signs that keep being placed on the curb strip where they aren't allowed instead of people's front yards where they are allowed. How about people cutting down what are defined in the regs and in the city tree plans as protected historic trees? Why not start going around the city and notifying homeowners they have those on their properties and are not allowed to cut them down? How about all the glass in the bicycle lanes that I have to watch for and avoid (already had one flat - next one the city will be billed for). How about all the people who are shooting off illegal fireworks until midnight - can't shoot off anything that needs to be launched or anything within 100 feet of a building (that is impossible in a residential area and quiet hours start at 11 pm). How about......
