Village tries to fine Long Island woman who replaced lawn with native plants
The case testing whether beauty is in the eye of the beholder unfolded on New York's Long Island.
Xilin Zhang overhauled her front lawn with native plants in New Hyde Park.
"It's a very natural look," she said. "There's tons of butterflies and bees and birds coming ... It's not just some grass doing nothing."
It's the outgrowth of a Town of North Hempstead grant to encourage native plant gardens. But Zhang was told her yard clashes with the village code, and she received a summons with a fine up of $2,000.
The village mayor, bluntly, said Zhang's yard was "hideous."
"When ugly is that overwhelming, you have to call it what it is. That front yard looks hideous," Mayor Christopher Devane said.
After four rounds in court, the village and Zhang reached a compromise. The summons was dismissed, but the garden must stay below 4 feet.
Native plant advocates in Port Washington launched a movement to get suburbanites to ditch their lawns. Gardens, like Zhang's, have more attractive benefits, they say.
"Sustainable gardens are not just beautiful for the eye. They protect our drinking water," Mindy Germain, Port Washington's water commissioner, said. "We're trying to move away from these big green lawns that are sucking up too much water from our aquifer."
"There are lots of towns on Long Island which are encouraging people to put in wild flowers because they don't want all that pollution going into the bay," Raju Rajan, president of Rewild Long Island, said.
Though native Long Island plants grow without chemicals and help absorb rainwater, the New Hyde Park mayor said the transformation of Zhang's yard was troubling.
"Which property would you like to live next door to?" Devane said.
He said the gardens need to look more pleasing for the idea to catch on.
"There potentially is a happy medium. That, in my opinion, is not it," he said.
Meanwhile, Zhang hopes to encourage a change in mindset about what looks good in the garden.
"We need encourage people to do the right thing, do the right thing for us and for the planet," she said.
She also put up a sign to make her case clear: This isn't neglect, it's a conscious choice.
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