Vox Humana wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
What defines the difference between "natural landscaping" and unkempt?
How do we know the difference between a Nieman-Marcus yard and a Costco
one? Do we have a gene for perceiving invasive species?...


I would say that it is akin to the discernment of pornography vs. art You
know it when you see it. The introduction of the terms "Nieman-Marcus and
"Costco" reinforce my suspicion that there is something far more emotional
about this than landscape design or plant selection. I don't think it has
anything much to do with money. As my mother used to say, "You don't have
to have money to be clean." In other words, you can spend virtually no
money and have a great landscape. Mowing and pulling weeds is almost free.
You can generally befriend other gardeners and get divisions of perennials
for free. Starting plants from seeds is very inexpensive. Propagating
shrubs from cutting is nearly free. Of course you do have to devote your
time and effort. But really, if you aren't putting some effort into your
landscape, you are a gardener, you merely coexist with the property.
Gardening is not passive.

I'm not saying that people who don't garden are bad, but as you see, there
are certain expectations placed on you based on your setting. When you live
in a city, there is a social contract and certain laws. You have the
advantage of pooling your resources with the neighbors and in return you get
fire, police, water, sewers, cultural opportunities and so on. In exchange,
people expect you to conform to a norm that includes, among other things, a
minimum level of yard maintenance. If you live in a planned unit
development, the requirements may be higher. In a rural area, there are
fewer common benefits and lower maintenance requirements.

I think the concept of "invasive species" is a red herring. While
introducing invasives has a strong negative environmental impact, it has
little to do with your particular situation. I suspect that if you had a
well maintained yard full of invasive plants it wouldn't be a code
violation. Again, gardening isn't passive. Since we aren't born with
gardening expertise, one has to do some research.

As for "natural" and "unkempt" - again, I think it hinges on the concept of
being purposeful and active as opposed to neglectful and passive. Perhaps
"natural" would better be express as "informal." All landscapes have
structure. There is a canopy of trees, a mid-ground of shrubs and tall
perennials, and a foreground of short perennials and ground cover. There is
thought put into sight lines, just as one would compose a picture. There is
consideration given to leaf size, shape, color, and texture. Function is
considered - is the yard used for sports or relaxation. The particulars of
plant selection and hardscape material depends on your location and can be
skewed to minimize, but not eliminate, maintenance.


I would agree that a key attribute of high-quality
gardening or landscaping is that it makes the land
look managed, to some degree or other. But we
can go beyond the hoary old pornography comparison
in articulating what is acceptable management.
For example, I would argue that implicit in even
the natural lanscaping movement is the constraint
that while you can be infromal at the scale
of shrubs or larger, you better sweat the small
stuff: randomness or texture in vegetation shorter
than, say, knee level is unacceptable unless it
has flowers.

I've gotten interested in exploring the tension
at this boundary. My fake mushrooms are a
self-referential stunt (i.e. commenting on the
immediately surrounding vegetation) that, if I
installed more of them, could more or less call
for me to leave the property as is to make a
complete artistic statement (thereby begging for a
First Amendment defense if I get cited again,
of course).

What I'll do, though, is manage the vegetation so
that it's conventionally close-trimmed adjacent
to the house. This would complement my wife's
pansies in pots hanging on the porch. From there
outward I'll arrange to have a sort of gradient
into wildness.

--
(Charles Packer)
ungoogled: mailboxATSIGNcpacker.org
http://cpacker.org/whatnews

Travis wrote:



Around here we call it the parking strip even though it is against the
law to park on it.


It's a great place for my dogs to shit when we walk by Kanter's shack.

This was also a great place to snip all that useless text you leave in
yoru replies.

Travis wrote:
Warren wrote:
Jean wrote:
I've lived in Northeastern Ohio my whole life. We call it the
tree lawn. It doesn't matter if there is no tree, it's still the
tree lawn. I never heard it called anything else. Maybe my world
is too small.

Growing up in Southeastern Wisconsin, everyone I knew called it
"the space between the sidewalk and the street". Of course it
wasn't a big topic of conversation, and people weren't obsessed
with giving things nicknames back then. Eventually I did start to
hear it called the "parkway" or "parkway strip".

Part of the reason for such non-concern about it was that in the
City of Milwaukee, the trees in the strip were planted by, and
owned by the City. The adjoining property owners were not allowed
to landscape the strip in any way. They were expected to keep the
grass tended: weeds picked, mowed properly, and watered. Some folks
re-sodded or re-seeded the grass, but anything more than that could
lead to a ticket and removal. In commercial areas, a request for
pavement could be made. Carriage walks could be installed in
residential areas, but they had to be maintained to the same
standards as the sidewalk.

What is a carriage walk?

A narrow concrete path between the sidewalk and the curb, often lined-up to
be an extension of the walkway to the front door. It's what you once walked
on to get to the door of the carriage that was parked in front of your
house. They are also often found where the rear door of a transit bus would
discharge passengers. (And by ordinance, the ajoining property owner is
required to clear it of snow just as they are required to clear the rest of
the sidewalk.)


So the ordinary person only had to worry about watering and mowing
the grass, and keeping the dandelions down. There wasn't much of a
reason to come up with a special name for "the strip between the
sidewalk and the street", or "between the sidewalk and the street"
for short.
The first time I heard it given any kind of derogatory name was a
few years after moving to Portland, Oregon where I heard it called
the "hell strip". By that time I had noticed that it wasn't a
standardized, sanitized zone like in Milwaukee, and that people
landscaped them very differently, and very seldom does that mean a
single tree surrounded by sod. I don't think I've ever seen anyone
watering their "hell strip", either. But my subdivision doesn't
have sidewalks, so it's not something I see everyday.

I understood that putting in streets, curbs, sidewalks, street lights,
sewer lines and what not as well as houses was what constituted a
subdivision.

A subdivision is nothing more than the platting of a group of lots. (In most
states, 4 or more lots.) The governmental unit overseeing development in the
area may require different things. In most states, either the sale of the
individual lots, or building of homes can't take place until water and sewer
is installed, and all lots must have access to a public street (via private
easements may be allowed.) Most require easements for other utilities be
included in the subdivision plan.

Depending on state laws and local ordinances and goals, widths of street
easements, street lights, sidewalks, bike paths, greenspace, stormwater
retention ponds, public space between the sidewalk and the curb, and
landscaping are things that may or may not be included in any plan. These
things can change over time. For example, my city now requires sidewalks,
but when my subdivision was built in the 1970s it did not. (And the rules
were far different in the 1870's, as well!)

But basically, what a subdivision is comes down to a platting of 4 or more
lots.

--
Warren H.

==========
Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
Have an outdoor project? Get a Black & Decker power tool::
http://www.holzemville.com/mall/blackanddecker/

Tiny Human Ferret wrote:
Travis wrote:

Tiny Human Ferret wrote:

Vox Humana wrote:
"Warren" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Bringing the retaining wall into this shows
that you guys live in gated communities or
similar lala lands. You'd fear to come into
this part of town. Your standards are
irrelevant.
That's an awfully prejudicial remark.
It always comes down to this. I'm surprised that the thread
lasted this long without personal insults or the inclusion of the
term "Mc Mansion."
But looking at the photo at http://cpacker.org/a3.jpg I would have
to say that it does look about half reverted to the wild. Then
again, I'm pretty old-school northern-euro in my aesthetics of a
"well kept yard".

http://www.earthops.net/now/now-west.jpg (realtime) would give you
an ideal of the general aesthetic in my own neighborhood.



Your picture is so low quality that it doesn't show much of anything.


It's a webcam.


And you were VERY polite to leave off the Homer-level "Doh" on your
response.

Really.

Classy move.

--
bailey

Doug Kanter wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...
front yard, (http://cpacker.org/a1.jpg)

(http://cpacker.org/a2.jpg).


I hope that wall falls on a dog.

Lots of laughs (I hate internet acronyms), I will assume your
are not a dog lover.

--
John in the sand box of Marylands eastern shore.

"Jean B." wrote in message
...
wrote:

About that citation for "excessive"
vegetation: The inspector didn't show
up at the hearing, so the hearing officer
declared it dismissed for lack of
prosecution. Kind of a letdown, actually.

My neighbor across the street told me she
had seen somebody photographing my furry
front yard, (http://cpacker.org/a1.jpg)
and I assume it was the inspector. Maybe
they studied their prints and realized
that it formed the right backdrop, after
all, for the fake wooden mushrooms I had
"planted" earlier this year
(http://cpacker.org/a2.jpg).


Neat mushrooms! Too bad we folks who are not into manicured
monoculture expanses of lawn can't band together....

--
Jean B.

Ah, but there is. There's a group started here in Wisconsin some 20-30
years ago dedicated to natural landscaping called The Wild Ones. In their
earlier days they fought a lot of battles over their "messy" yards. Check
them out. If there isn't a chapter in your area, you might consider
starting one: http://www.for-wild.org/chapters.html.

Suzy O