Santa Barbara, my beautiful home town, has A LOT of rules and regs for homeowners. I did a bit of research into those strictures that govern plants in peoples' front yards. It's pretty amazing. Here's an excerpt from my Edhat.com column for this week....
Those Agapanthus in your parkway strip could land you in jail for a year. No, I don't mean your plants are going to rat you out for falling behind on your child support. But aiding and abetting a plant that can grow more than eight inches tall in your parkway is a crime.
That ten-foot tall, bright pink oleander hedge that keeps your front yard nice and private? Add your attorney's number to your speed dial. I see a possible perp-walk in your future.
And I pity da foo' whose juniper inches over the curb into the street right-of-way. But not to worry, you'll get to see the sun when you're released into the County jail exercise yard from 9:12 - 9:18 every other Tuesday morning.
Anything like this in YOUR town?
Read the rest here.
6 comments:
Hmmm. I like it. Making it illegal to plant agapanthus, oleander and juniper in california yards. If only it were a state law.
Thankfully, this isn't the case in my city. I spoke to my city a few weeks back to figure out what their policy was on shrubs in the front yard.
We live on a busy street and close to a busy intersection and have a huge front yard that has no privacy. The city permits only a 3 ft fence in the front. However i had noticed that a lot of people in the area had huge Oleanders (some more than 8 ft tall) that gave them complete privacy in their front yard.
We haven't decided what we should plant for privacy. Having 4 huge oaks makes it even more challenging
I have a little but about this on the back page of the current Horticulture--but in our city, there are no actual laws. What we have are complaining neighbors who routinely bring the law down on people who grow high sunflowers, tall perennials in the front yard, and so on.
But it's very common to have actual laws on the books in suburban developments where there are homeowner associations and the like.
I've never heard of Municipalities having these kinds of rules--especially with such harsh penalties. It's easier to get away with murder and mayhem it seems in some places than with the wrong plantings.
Arizona has fairly strict rules and penalties for removing cacti from desert areas, but nothing in our town about what not to plant (other than Morning Glories.)
Aiyana
Thank you for this post, we are a online dating website blog network, which college students read our blog, so thanks and well post this article on our blog. Jennifer @ University of Syracuse
Hydroponics: I'm not sure I know what you just said but glad I'm reaching a college audience. Please tell me you're not an English major with an editing minor. Dude, read it out loud before you publish.
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