Feathers and Flowers: Vegetation Alert

Friday, April 18, 2014

Vegetation Alert

Before

After

My encounters with fly-by-night yard services and weird hedge-trimmers have been well documented on Feathers and Flowers. You would think this blogger could find nothing else to write on the subject? HA!

Just when our hedge recovered from being gutted, slashed and gouged, just when it was starting to look disciplined and pretty again, imagine our surprise receiving a rude "Vegetation Alert" flier in the mail from the City of Seattle. Not a citation exactly, but I guess if you ignore the warning long enough (that period not specified) The Seattle Department of Planning and Development, Code Compliance Division can enforce the Weeds and Vegetation Code Violation with "$150 or $500 citations." That is rather a big spread, so I suppose the fine depends on the offensiveness of your vegetation.

Now, Seattle doesn't have the resources to police vegetation on every sidewalk in town. We were apparently ratted out by a citizen or some unknown neighbor who in passing by, noticed that the base of our hedge extends a few inches over the sidewalk. The impressive thing is, this person went to the trouble to report our address to The City of Seattle. Who wants to call the City of Seattle for any reason?? Well, maybe you can text or email your complaints now.

Anyway, I've lived here since 1980. We pay hefty property tax. Our garden is beautiful. Neighbors know us. I came of age in that 60's hippie decade of protests and standing up to "The Man," so this annoying piece of paper didn't exactly make me jump to attention. I figured we would just do the minimum, and think about it the next time we had the hedge trimmed.

Story continued next door...

Then we found out our neighbor across the street, whose hedge is painstakingly, lovingly hand-sheared like a pet poodle had received the same notice. I guess some folks are just more law abiding than others, and they immediately attacked their beautiful laurel. Being do-it-your-selfers, they've been laboring away outside and as they work, every curious passer-by on our busy street hears about the outrageous city Vegetation Alerts we both received.

The story is told and then everyone glances over at our non-complying hedge, shaking their heads. (I see this from the kitchen window, because I've become such a Nosy Parker.) So, the cat was out of the bag. Nothing like peer pressure and public shame to get a person motivated.

From lemons we make lemonade. It gave me a reason to call Colin, the sweetest arborist in the world (who BTW I have a crush on) from Ravenna Arborists. He came to my rescue after that cowardly arborist abandoned the hedge job a few years ago. In a few hours, it was done. We don't mess around here. He didn't touch the inside of course, so my view this morning is exactly the same. As Colin says, "Laurel always grows back." And as John says, "We don't have to look at it from the street."
So much for curb appeal.