Tag Archives: Garden

Not In Your Back Yard

16 Tuesday Jul 2024

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I was a bit surprised to read a post in a local Facebook group decrying the state of a neighbour’s back yard. The post was accompanied by photographs of the offending yard, along with the plaintive question “What can I do about it?”.

Not the actual back yard in question

My first reaction was “Mind your own business”. It’s not unknown for the City to require someone to mow down weeds in their front yards, but back yards as well? In fact, what was the complaint about? What is aesthetic? Was it about health? I couldn’t really decide. The person complaining was doing so on behalf of her (claimed) elderly parents and their dog who, it seems don’t like bugs in the yard. I can see that a neighbour’s overgrown yard might attract bugs, but firstly you’d have to prove it was the overgrown yard causing the issue, and secondly to what extent are some bugs a nuisance that should involve the City. Where does a person’s right to have their back yard as they wish begin and end?

Obviously if a yard is likely to be a breeding ground for rats or other pests, then health issues would be a good enough reason for the City to act. Having fires without permits, or the creation of obvious noise pollution like late night parties, will be other reasons for them to act, but I’m still struggling to see why a neighbour’s overgrown yard would be enough for the City to be involved, not least because the owner or lessee of the yard has rights, too.

It’s a fact that the good people of this town like things neat and tidy. There are byelaws, which the City will uphold if you nudge them a bit, but often people assume byelaws to be bigger and more sweeping than they actually are. The man who complained about our trailer being on our driveway hadn’t read the rules, so his bleat to the City failed. No one has yet complained about all the native plants and trees in our front yard, although I feel they could at any time, it’s happened elsewhere in the city, but if they did then again they’d find that the byelaws protect our rights rather than their complaint. But I’m not sure about back yards, and until I feel someone’s back yard is upsetting me (which will never happen), I’m not even going to look at the Byelaws.

There’s the thing, why complain at all? So your neighbour’s yard is a bit overgrown? Don’t look at it, build a tall fence, grow a hedge. Ultimately, unless the neighbour is actually impacting you or your life, and I don’t mean with a few bugs, then stay in your lane and let the neighbours be.

Winter’s Around The Corner

16 Monday Oct 2023

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Or “Where Am I Going To Put All This Stuff?”

We have really nice summers here in South Western Ontario. Warm from May to September, often thirty degrees Celsius or more, and not too humid most of the time. As a result, we all like to have a nice yard to use, and with that yard comes an awful lot of stuff. Tables, chairs, plants, bird baths, fountains, and much, much, more. The only problem is that most of that stuff isn’t going to survive too long if we left it out during the winter.

Winters here are, by Canadian standards, very mild. We don’t normally get much cold weather before Christmas, and while we can go six or eight weeks below zero in the New Year, that’s rare, as is us getting much in the way of snow. But that would still be enough to trash anything left exposed to the elements.

So, come October it’s time to pack everything away. The pool gets closed by professionals (at huge cost!), but I still have work to do prepping, then getting the poolside furniture put away. This year we have two rain barrels, and a heap of children’s toys to be stored, that latter item expanding with every year as the grand-baby gets bigger. The patio furniture has to go in the shed, as does a growing arsenal of garden tools and sundries we now have to maintain the garden. It all has to be cleaned off, too, which is isn’t fun.

Then there’s the garage, used in the summer months to store camping gear, well one side of the garage anyway, and that all has to be shifted so that we can get two of the three family cars stored under cover. The garage this year was also an auxiliary potting shed, and a store for Charlie’s bike, scooter, go-kart, and strollers, so there was even more stuff.

Our shed isn’t packed up yet, rain stopped play when I was working on the task today, but the basement, is packed to bursting with seasonal accoutrements ranging from camping gear to pool pumps.

We have at least stopped prepping the garden for winter. Our native plant array loves to be left where it is, and that allows all manner of beneficial creatures to over-winter with us. We don’t mulch or rake the leaves anymore, either, as the bugs like those as well.

But the packing up process is a chore, and gets more involved every year. I don’t mind, though, as it’s always an inversely proportional pleasure getting it all out again next Spring. Thank goodness for retirement.