Her Beautiful Gardens Drew City Complaints, So She Had To Get Them Approved By Nature Conservation To Be Left Alone
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Imagine living in a house that was originally owned by your grandparents, passed down to your parents and now passed down to you. Along with the house, there are gardens in the front and the back of the house that have been carefully cared for by your grandparents and your parents.
What would you do if the city complained about a hedge your grandfather planted a long time ago?
In this story, one woman was in that situation, and she decided to make sure the city wouldn’t complain again.
Keep reading for all the details.
The city wanted me to take better care of my gardens, so I had them approved by the local nature conservation association
My house is surrounded by two gardens, one in the front, facing the street, and one in the back, bordering my neighbours’ gardens.
When my parents and grandparents moved into our house 26 years ago, they planted a thick hedge around the entire property.
They also installed a rose arch over the pathway to our front door and my grandfather was always busy keeping up the garden, planting, weeding, keeping everything very tidy.
The garden was neglected for a while.
My grandfather died in 2002 and after that, the garden was neglected for a few years as my parents were still working and my brother and I were in university/school.
But then, ca. 2005, my mum read something that we should plant stuff to help the bees and she took over the gardens, planting lilac, rhododendron, roses and various berries.
Later we decided to also install raised garden beds with various kitchen herbs.
Now, OP and her brother are in charge of the gardens.
My mum is now over 70 years old and has officially given the house over to my brother and me, so that we won’t be taxed on inheriting it when she dies.
Since then, I’ve been sporadically taking care of the gardens.
I like them in their wild shape with all the birds, bees, bumblebees and butterflies flying around, in autumn we get hedgehogs and we’ve been visited by a fox recently (which send my cats into a panic).
The city complained about the hedges.
Then, recently, we received a letter from the city stating that our garden was interfering with the safety of the street, because the hedge was overgrowing the pavement and contained poisonous berries which were a danger to children.
Now, my brother trims the hedge every month to make sure nothing is overgrowing the pavement in any way, and while the berries are poisonous, to get to them you’d have to be quite resilient because they’re surrounded by thorns.
They are also know to be ideal food for some local birds.
OP had an idea.
So, I contacted our local nature conservation association and asked if they would like to have a look at our gardens and maybe tell us if we could improve anything to make them even more nature friendly.
They came, looked around and then told us they rarely see gardens so in touch with nature.
They approved our gardens as “especially nature friendly” and contacted the city to tell them that from their point of view, any changes would be considered unfriendly to nature, and since our city prides itself with once being one of the “green capitals” in our country, they had to budge.
Don’t mess with my gardens!
Their garden really does sound beautiful. I’m glad they got it approved by the nature conservation association and the city.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
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This person likes OP’s gardening style.
Another person loves how OP handled the situation.
This person loves the story.
This is funny.
I like how she handled the situation. I hope this house and these gardens get passed down for generations and generations to come.
The garden sounds lovely all the way from the beginning with the hedge and the roses.
She did the right thing by refusing to let the city force them to change anything.
Nature should be appreciated, not modified.
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