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Wednesday - September 22, 2004
From: Georgetown, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Plant Laws
Title: Weed laws on mowing wildflowers in the Spring
Answered by: Stephen Brueggerhoff
QUESTION:
Is there any law that would prevent a Town from making a person mow their wildflowers down in the spring?ANSWER:
Depending on the property: for personal urban home, I suggest checking either your local city Department of Transportation, or with your homeowner association regarding vegetative maintenance restrictions. If the property is rural, then you need to check with your state Department of Transportation Vegetative Maintenance division. Department of Transportation from either city, county or state are more concerned with personal safety regarding vehicular line of sight.The U.S. EPA provides a guide book on natural landscaping from their website. This guidebook was prepared by the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC) for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5. The intended audience is local officials, land owners, and citizens in the greater northeastern Illinois region. It might assist you with supplemental reference regarding establishment of naturalistic landscaping in an urban environment. Also, try Wild Ones, Ltd, a midwest non-profit promoting naturalistic landscaping in urban areas. Try the links to "weed laws", a topic most often involved in development of landscaping ordinances. I think that a new acronym and view/philosophy can change the focus from "native plants as weeds" to discussing the incorporation of naturalistic landscaping in urban areas as a biologically positive aspect of human interaction with nature.
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