She and Brandon thought they had done everything right: They sought landscaping advice and joined their local Native Plant Society chapter. Before buying seeds, they let the plants already in the ground grow to see what they had. A meadow began to take shape. Left unmown, the native prairie grasses grew as tall as four feet and attracted birds that nested in the safety of the new landscape.
But the following summer, when the grasses were near their seasonal height, a pair of Silver City code enforcement officers knocked on the couple’s door.
The officers said that the yard violated a local nuisance code. It was, they said, full of overgrown “weeds” and would need to be mowed immediately. Weston and Brandon later learned that a neighbor had complained.
These codes, common in cities across the country, allow municipalities to regulate landscaping decisions on private property, in the interest of public safety and aesthetic sensibilities. The intentions are good: An overgrown hedge can block the view of a driver pulling onto a busy road; a nest of noxious weeds or debris can attract pests. But at a time when homeowners are increasingly favoring native plants over turf grass lawns, weed ordinances can conflict with the personal choices of residents.
At the time, their meadow blossomed with orange globe mallow, a drought-resistant perennial, alongside wild poppies and prairie coneflowers, which bloom deep red and thrive in bright sunlight. Native grass, such as cane bluestem, sideoats grama and blue grama, grew tall. Cues for care were evident on the property, with freshly mowed lines along the public sidewalk.
“We said, ‘we don’t have weeds,’” Brandon says. “We have native plants and grasses. We were insisting, ‘what are the weeds?’”
Brandon asked for specifics about the violations and to see the ordinance in question. The officers agreed to bring it to the house a few days later, then left the couple with a warning and handwritten instructions that read, “Weeds need to be cut.”
The officers returned with the ordinance language. The city nuisance codes forbade “Noxious weeds or other rank vegetation which produce noxious odors” or anything that “provides harborage for rats, mice or other rodents, snakes or other vermin.”
Pointing to the language, the officers said the yard was at risk of harboring vermin, which Brandon and Weston denied.
When the officers returned a third time to find that the plants were still not cut back, they issued a formal citation.
By then, the interaction had grown tense. Brandon says that when he tried to explain his side, he was told that he could tell his complaints to the judge in court. (A representative for the Silver City Police Department, which enforces the city code, did not return a request for comment about the interaction.)
Feeling that they had done nothing wrong, but facing a showdown — one rife with potential legal consequences — with their new community, they went searching for professional advice.
They found it in an attorney from the prairie-lands of Iowa who specializes in weed ordinance law: the auspiciously named Rosanne Plante.
From plant prosecutor to plant defender
As an assistant city attorney for Sioux City from 2002 to 2008, Plante had made a career of defending her town’s weed ordinances and prosecuting those who ran afoul of them. She oversaw a team she dubbed “the weed police” that drove around searching for infractions.
Since leaving her post with the city, Plante, a lifelong gardener, has used her intimate knowledge of municipal flora law to benefit the very types of offenders she once prosecuted. Attitudes about gardening have shifted over the last few decades, as people have become more tolerant of landscaping without turf grass and more aware of the benefits of native plants. She says the regulations need to improve so local governments take these changes into account, while still considering public safety.
These days she takes a balanced approach to weed ordinances, trying to bridge the divide between local governments and gardeners. The rules, she says, are necessary “to a certain extent,” but she wants to see them written more precisely, to allow exceptions for homeowners growing native species that don’t look “traditional.”
“I’m able to help because I know what the other side is doing,” Plante says. “And that’s a real powerful tool.”
Plante says she would approach her old job differently if she were doing it today. Instead of writing citations, she would focus on teaching people about native plants to guide them about what falls within regulations.
“People should have the freedom to have native plants and things that don’t look like Barbieland,” she says. “But we do need to have some parameters so people don’t have a yard full of eight-foot plants.”
For Plante, who was named a certified Iowa master gardener in 2004 and a master conservationist in 2019, this work felt like a natural pairing of her personal interests and her professional background. She also incorporates agriculture into her other personal passion: beauty pageants. In addition to her work with gardeners, Plante is known nationally as “the pageant lawyer” because she represents pageants around the country. She’s also a contestant: In the Mrs. Iowa International pageant, she showcased gardening as part of her campaign. Plante reigns as the 2023-2024 Mrs. Agriculture America Elite.
Gardening, a hobby she learned from her grandmother, has always been a part of Plante’s life. She and her husband, Chad, started a garden on an acre of land they own, where she retreats for stress relief while working on challenging cases. In 2016, Chad was severely injured when a public bus struck his car, an accident that left him in a coma for nearly two weeks with a traumatic brain injury. As part of his recovery, Plante guided him through a regimen of garden therapy, techniques she now teaches others.
‘The Wild Lawyers’
These days, Plante chairs a group of attorneys known as “the Wild Lawyers,” who provide guidance and advice for native plant gardeners charged with violating city codes or homeowners association rules. The lawyers are part of an organization called Wild Ones, with native plant activists working in chapters around the country. As part of her role, she leads seminars on combating and avoiding weed ordinance citations.
She also encourages governments to shape ordinance language in a way that protects public safety while still allowing native gardening and nontraditional landscaping. Plante has written a sample weed ordinance that she says can help jurisdictions manage that balance.
A well-written ordinance, she says, must strictly define what it means by a “weed.” Many don’t, allowing city enforcement agencies broad leeway to interpret the rule however they see fit.
“Usually the biggest problems are that they’re vague and their definitional sections are very bad,” Plante says. “The very first chapter of any good ordinance should be definitions.”
As native plant landscaping grows in popularity, cities are starting to rethink their ordinances. The National Wildlife Federation has called on municipalities to update their weed ordinances to take native plants into account, and over the past few years, many cities have done so. Moves like that could reduce tension between gardeners and local governments, says Jim Poznak, a retired attorney who helped organize the Wild Lawyers in 2021.
“I would hope that as awareness grows, incidents would decline because people would not only know what the landscape is, but appreciate it,” Poznak says. “Even if you don’t like how it looks, at least appreciate that it has ecological significance.”
How to respond to a citation
When gardeners like Weston and Brandon call asking for help, Plante urges them to react calmly. A citation isn’t a conviction, and those cited will have a chance to defend themselves. Even though a visit from an officer can feel intimidating, it doesn’t mean you have to immediately pull out the lawn mower and tear everything down. Start by asking them to specify exactly what you’ve done wrong, she says, and to show you the exact wording of the ordinance in question.
She also recommends responding by showing officials that your landscaping approach is intentional. Knowing the benefits of cultivating plants native to the area can help you be more persuasive.
“Most communities are open to having you talk to them,” Plante says.
Because most citations are complaint driven — as was the case for Weston and Brandon — gardeners can take steps to avoid a visit from the city in the first place. This starts with implementing what are known as “cues for care,” or visible signs that your yard design is intentional. That includes mowing around the edges of the property and creating neat walking paths through taller grasses. Or putting up signs educating the public on the benefits of the native plants in the garden. You can even designate the land as a certified wildlife habitat with the National Wildlife Federation.
Benjamin Vogt, founder of the Nebraska-based landscape design firm Monarch Gardens, says that although awareness of the benefits of native plants is increasing, it’s still important to make aesthetics a part of the calculus.
“Anything but a lawn will feel like a breach of the social contract in so many urban and suburban neighborhoods,” says Vogt, author of “Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design.” “Even though a natural landscape is cleaning and cooling the air, reducing urban flooding, rebuilding soils and providing for the insects and bugs that literally make our world work.”
Vogt also recommends being able to identify each plant in your garden.
“The number one defense you can have if you are reported is to know your plants,” Vogt says. “And by that I mean be able to recite the Latin names in a conversation or, at the very least, have a list you can quickly print up or email. Knowledge is power and makes advocacy for natural gardens more possible and successful. Show others you know what you are doing, have researched the plants and didn’t just stop mowing then hope for the best.”
In her seminars, Plante recommends pushing back if you’re issued a citation. She advises people to take time preparing their argument by backing it with facts about what’s in the garden and the role those plants play in the local ecosystem.
“I urge everybody to plead not guilty immediately. Never admit to any of these folks that you agree with them and you have broken the law,” she says. “You don’t have to prove that it’s not a weed. They have to prove that it is a weed.”
Standing their ground
For Brandon and Weston, Plante read Silver City’s regulations and urged them to continue with their case. (While the Wild Lawyers are open to offering broad guidance through their educational programs, they do not represent clients in any formal way.)
“She was extremely helpful to us. She encouraged us to stand our ground,” Brandon says. “A lot of people would just roll over and say, ‘okay, I’ll mow my yard down because a guy with a badge showed up and told us to.’”
In 2023, Weston and Brandon prepared to take their case to court. They carefully documented each plant in their yard. They delivered their evidence to the town and subpoenaed expert witnesses to speak on their behalf.
Two days before the trial date, the judge dismissed the case. Their meadow could remain.
Chris Moody is a writer based in Boone, N.C., where he teaches journalism and broadcast media at Appalachian State University. He last wrote about the rise of native plant gardening for The Washington Post in 2022.
