MAINE–(ENEWSPF)–December 1, 2011. Happy Holidays . . . Louise Quigley has the seventh day of her Advent calendar marked for a not-so-warm celebration. She’s headed to court to defend her right to grow native plants on what some in the neighborhood think should be a traditionally mown lawn.
While she claims that in the past 20 years numerous people in her suburban Shorewood neighborhood have stopped by to tell her how much they love her roadside garden, that includes prairie grasses that grow to six feet tall, town officials say they’ve received “a slew” of complaints — that number as many as three a year.
“I put in some prairie grasses…purple coneflowers, goldenrods, milkweeds and butterfly weeds,” she told the local newspaper. “They are less work, they come up every year, they are pretty. Native perennials have all kinds of environment benefits because the native plants feed the native bugs, feed the birds; it’s the bottom of the food chain. You can promote the survival of our ecosystem and our biosphere if you plant native plants.”
The local code enforcement officers would have none of it, however. What does preserving an ecosystem and a biosphere mean in the face of three complaints a year?
Here’s the story: http://shorewood.patch.com/articles/battle-rages-on-over-gardens-accenting-shorewood-homes. It’s the lead item of the week for the paper in the town of 1,500. When true crime happens, these guys are on it.
Source: www.safelawns.org
