I hope you've been documenting your communication with the people at the town office. I wish you all the best in dealing with that ridiculous complaint!

We have similar bi-laws that you stated: you must maintain the boulevard in front of your home, if the city destroys anything you are responsible for replacing whatever.
So far nobody has cared I have boulevard plantings. I saw an inspector out there the other day and I don't know inspecting what - but everything I have is relatively neat: considering 4 neighbors don't have anything there but dirt, one has only mulch because tree roots are still there from a dead tree, one has grass, 3 have weeds, one has flowers and plants in there too...
Last year my neighbor had work done by the city for water. The workers STOLE THE PLANTS! Dug them out, put them nicely in their truck WITH BUCKETS OF MY GOOD DIRT and replaced the dirt with clay. I was FURIOUS and called the City, they had no business at all digging up my place. The City were fantastic (for once) and although they replaced nothing, there were three buckets of great compost and three of mulch there within a day. It took me some dividing of stuff but I got it all filled back in. The workers had also BURRIED CEMENT CHUNKS in there -on purpose and I filled the buckets with those and sent them back. Best of all, they City sent the workers who made the mess to deal with me!
Generally, if you don't have overgrowth you can have the plants. I think they are usually to be maintained at a few feet tall but I've argued that taller plants keep cars away from in front of our streets: cars of people trying to make clean get aways after breaking into your house, "workin' ladies" and their customers, and drug dealers. If a home looks cared for, like someone regularly tends it, I find negative people tend to steer clear (which is good in my neighborhood). All of my neighbors seem to love it, they use the rosemary planted there, collect the seeds from annuals, and I even have "regulars" from around the city drive by to see what is growing. I feel if I have a problem I've got plenty of backing.

Did he quote from the by-law that you are in violation of? That would be the starting place, to see if there is even a real issue. We can do whatever we want in the parkway, but everyone seems to have the usual grass and a tree or two. I would like to do more, but our street has underground utilities running through like tire tracks and I'm not interested in accidentally slicing through.

Thank you Merilia. I never realized that flowers (of all things) could possibly become controversial.

I am so thankful that I don't have some of the problems you do, girlgroupgirl. Although it does sound as though you still manage to nurture
a garden oasis in amongst the urban chaos - good for you!

Not only did he quote the bylaw, bev, he attached a copy to the letter. It looked as if it had been drafted in antediluvian times because the type face was pretty darn archaic. Probably had to dig it up from who-knows-where. Maybe that's why the others didn't know of it. And yes, it specifically said that
only sod could be grown on the boulevard. Nuts. This place is so old-fashioned. I guess that I'll be challenging the town council to get with the times.

There are similar laws here. However, there are people who create gardens in what we call the he*ll strip and they look wonderful. There are others that end up looking dreadful. I want to do it as well, but I will need some evergreen plants since we are not covered in snow and I know the sight of just dirt or, worse, mud during the winter would not be approved. I am going to mix in some hellebores, perhaps liriope, asarum, etc. in with things that die back. I think the desire to have something green is the driving factor behind these statutes, so perhaps you could mix in some other things and take pics to back your position. Good luck.

I've planted my entire hell strip. It's about 5'x 50'. It's pretty uniform looking (a peony "hedge" backed by iris). I've never had any complaints or problems with city officials. Other in my neighborhood have planted their hell strips too. I have no idea if this is legal and I've never asked. I'm curious about how large your hell strip is with the bobcat being involved.

That is plain ridiculous. Even if it is some sort of bylaw I would question it. I don't see what the problem is with planting something there. As long as it isn't interfering with access to anything important (fire hydrant, telephone pole, etc) it shouldn't be an issue. Not sure if it would go far in helping your cause, but you might ask your neighbors to sign a petition or at least say they are not bothered by the plants. If it doesn't bother the people that live right next to you why the h*ll should it bother the city?!
Keep up the fight!
CMK

cyn, I can see where it would be a challenge keeping things nice looking year round. I'd be just like you and look into low, slow evergreens as well. Here though, we have lots of snow cover with road plows and sidewalk snowblowers, so it's best for everything to die back to the ground. I leave just 4" of cut off leaves to protect the crown of the day lily plants. I mulched between with shredded cedar as well. Next spring, I will transplant all the different kinds of creeping thyme that I have from the back yard to the perimeter of this bed - I think that should prevent any soil runoff without being so invasive as grass.

kristin, I love peonies. How do you keep them upright in such an exposed location? My hellstrip is 6' x 60' long, not much bigger than yours. It's amazing the volume of sod was removed. Took them less than thirty minutes to scrape it and the top 3" of dirt, add fresh soil and haul everything to the town compost site. Certainly worth the small amount of money it cost. I am so very slowly recovering from a stupid shoulder injury and am finding my plans are exceeding my current physical capability.

Thanks for the encouragement, christin. A petition is certainly worthwhile. This is a "walking" town and my front sidewalk is a popular route. The unsolicited feedback that I've gotten has been very favourable with lots of people now considering the same thing. Ha, let's see if mass civil disobedience will make the municipal government change their minds - you can't cross an old hippie and not expect a protest!

Adrienne, I agree! You should fight it. My comments about the winter were focused on here and trying to come up with a reason why our city council has the ability to dig up what we plant-not that I think they should be able to do so, dontchaknow! I figured your zone gets way more than ours. Well, except for the 52 inches we had a couple of years ago-that was GREAT!

Good luck and I hope you are able to show us pictures of a beautiful roadside garden next spring! I know that lots of islands/strips in Buffalo are planted. I am adding a link that shows one excellent example and a couple of less obvious examples if you scroll down a little(from the Perennials forum). You might want to show that to your fussy folks in City Hall!

Here is a link that might be useful: Buffalo

I guess I forget what a major pain it was digging up the 5' X 50' strip. A bobcat would have helped a lot.

I think your by-law officer may possibly have some major control "issues".

Kristin

Any update?? Have you been able to talk with the bylaw officer or anyone else about the situation?
CMK

Thanks for asking, christin.

I wrote a 4 page letter to the mayor, all the councillors, the chief administrative officer and the bylaw enforcement officer at the end of last week, including a copy of the bylaws of the nearest city so that they can appreciate what a more progressive municipality endorses - not that it is in the least extraordinary! On the letter to the mayor, I appended the photo below to give some idea of what the planting will look like next year. And although I haven't done up the petition yet, I shall if necessary. I have such a lot of support in the neighbourhood. Apparently even the local weekly newspaper is now aware of the issue.

If you look at this picture (just frame the portion near the bottom where different day lilies are bordered by creeping thyme),
this is very similar to the effect I'm trying to achieve with the boulevard planting.

Fantastic!! I sure hope they give you some nice written letter with permission to keep the bed. Then you could wave that little gem under the by-law officers nose if he or anyone else started to raise another stink about it!!
;-D It truly astounds me when a city (or anyone for that matter) pitches such a fit at something intended to do good (and certainly does no harm!!). I mean, you are making all the neighborhood more beautiful by planting out there. You should be commended and not condemned!

Hope you will continue to keep us up to date on what is going on ;-)
Ps. You vision for the bed looks great. Love the idea of the carpet of different colored creeping thyme.
Keep up the Fight for the Flowers!!
-Christin (CMK)

You never know how stupid beaurocracy can be until you run smack into it. And what a dumb thing to do! Instead of welcoming added beauty, they fight it. I hope uyou win this one.
kay

Well, just be ready to answer the question "can people exit the passenger side of a parked car easily?". Don't want to make you paranoid, but for the officer to be by and cite you so quickly, someone must have called in a complaint. In my previous neighborhood there were nasty neighbors (my move was spurred by not wanting to live next to them) that called in whenever one border plant (10 foot deep border) went over 3 feet as we had an ordinance for sight lines on corners and my front property was one long corner curve. Nevermind that we had 8 blind corners with 12 foor shrubs in the five street- the officer only sited me and only because he received a complaint from the troublemongers.

How is it going?
CMK

Bump.

Thanks for asking. I've heard that the town is backing down - I'm just waiting for official word. They requested my "plan" for the boulevard and written permission from the neighbours, all of which I have supplied. Silly gooses, I would have been more than happy to do this for them when I first broached the subject at the town offices - in fact, I had rather expected to do so. It was their own people on two separate occasions who specifically told me that I didn't need to put in any kind of application. The fact that their knickers got into a twist after the fact has more to do with their communication skills than mine! And all over some flowers for Pete's sake! At least it should be easier for the next person in our town who wishes to plant their boulevard...because more than a few people have said that they like what I've done here and want to do something similar at their own home in the spring. Hee.

Make sure you get the permission in writing in case anyone raises a stink about it in the future (which hopefully won't happen- although with 'officials' you never know)!

I'm so happy that things are working out for you. And how awesome is that about other people being inspired by you and wanting to plant their own strip/boulevards too!

Make sure to post lots of pictures next spring of your boulevard garden ;-)
CMK

Sometimes the end run is the easiest and bestest way to solve the problem. Does your city/town have a councilmanic system where council members represent particular geographic districts? If so, your council member and his or her field deputy will be your best friends in this addle-pated (on the city's part) crusade. It sounds like the problem may be on its way to resolution, but if there's a bump in the road, get in touch with your council member's office and let him or her know what's going down. Often a phone call from an elected official can be enough to make the bozos back down.

Kay

We call it a "tree lawn" here. I live in the city of Cleveland and the city really doesn't care what we do. I don't know if it's allowed or not, but lots of people have tree lawn gardens. Most people don't even bother with a permit for a tree on their tree lawn, although they should due to gas lines, etc. One of the advantages living in a place where there are much higher things on the priority list than flowers!!!

I put sunflowers in mine, it looked great. We have small concrete walkways from the street on both sides (we are a corner) so that eliminates the issue of getting out of a car. Also, obviously, we would not do anything with the section of tree lawn where the fire hydrant is.

Some people up the street have beautiful cottage gardens with moonflowers in their tree lawn.