KALAMAZOO   It was the talk of the weekend news Friday that city officials in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park warned a homeowner that her nicely tended raised-bed vegetable garden violated city code because it was in her front yard.

Posters on Facebook and local blogs were  incensed that the woman was charged  with a misdemeanor, leading to a potential jury trial and possible jail time.

The city code in question limits a homeowner to “grass ground cover, shrubbery, or other suitable live plant material” in any unpaved portion of their yard.

That’s not a problem in Kalamazoo, thanks largely to efforts of people like Tom Small and his wife, Nancy, now deceased, who championed the cause of native plantings in the city of Kalamazoo back in the 1990s.

Small said Monday that he and his wife started their work on behalf of a neighbor, who was cited for having weeds in his Oakland Drive yard, successfully arguing on his behalf that his native plantings should be allowed to stay.

The Smalls were concerned, though, that the city ordinance , which still forbade plants taller than 18 inches, and grass “going to seed.”

Their concerns eventually led to Small’s becoming a member of the city of Kalamazoo’s environmental concerns committee, and helping to rewrite the city’s ordinance to make natural landscaping legal.

The Smalls authored a guide for homeowners and converted their own yard to natural plantings.

“We actually started by growing vegetables in the front yard,” before deciding that a location so close to the street was not ideal because of pollution from passing traffic, Small said.

The key to the city’s ordinance, he said, is “maintenance.”
As long as plantings are maintained, they are allowed. The ordinance provides that a five-member board will be appointed to resolve complaints, Small said.

“That’s never been necessary.”

Andrea Augustine, Kalamazoo city planner, said the weed ordinance is designed to address unkempt lawns, not those that have vegetables and native plantings. “Since the revisions I don’t know there have been any disputes” about vegetables and native plantings. She said many people now opt for those types of yard planting over traditional turfgrass, a practice the city welcomes.

Now the Wild Ones Kalamazoo chapter,  promoting “establishment of communities of native plants around homes, schools and businesses, using ecological practices,” has grown to 140 members; about 25 neighbors in the Winchell neighborhood, as well as area schools and others, have embraced a more natural yard space.


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