Local officials slam woman with $2,000 fine for unconventional front lawn: 'That front yard looks hideous'
A Long Island woman faced fines for the supposed offense of replacing her lawn with native plants, CBS News reported.
New Hyde Park, New York, resident Xilin Zhang made the decision to transform her yard, per CBS, participating in a growing "rewilding" movement.
"It's a very natural look. There's tons of butterflies and bees and birds coming. ... It's not just some grass doing nothing," Zhang told CBS.
Rewilding your yard is a practice growing in prominence — it typically entails replacing some or all foliage with indigenous greenery and, oftentimes, swapping out monoculture grass for a native lawn.
The benefits of planting natives and switching away from a traditional lawn are manifold. They require fewer resources such as water, cost less to maintain, provide crucial support for pollinators, and — because native plants are suited to their areas — don't require nearly as much work.
However, there's one prominent downside in some places, with New Hyde Park being one of them: homeowners associations (or HOA bylaws), neighborhood busybodies, and sometimes local code enforcers have been known to object to or even sanction rewilded yards.
In Zhang's case, the village in Nassau County took exception to her native plants. In particular, Mayor Christopher Devane expressed disdain for her garden.
"When ugly is that overwhelming, you have to call it what it is. That front yard looks hideous," Devane opined.
Devane's personal assessment wasn't the only hurdle Zhang faced after rewilding her yard — she was given a summons with a potential fine of up to $2,000, per CBS.
Confusing matters is the fact that New Hyde Park is in the Towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead, the latter of which has an initiative that encourages native plants — and even offers homeowners grants to facilitate rewilding.
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While Zhang's efforts were encouraged by the Town of North Hempstead, New Hyde Park claimed her yard violated village code.
Across Long Island, groups such as ReWild Long Island have endeavored to convert gardeners — particularly because the chemicals used to maintain code-compliant lawns have been catastrophic for the health of the Great South Bay.
Neighboring Suffolk County has the highest rate of pesticide use in the state, and scientists at Stony Brook University determined that a record number of harmful algal blooms and dead zones occurred last summer.
"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," ReWild Long Island President Raju Rajan explained.
Ultimately, Zhang was permitted to keep her native plant lawn with one caveat: "as long as all plants stay under 4 feet tall," per News 12 Long Island.
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