Love Your Weeds- Part II

It began as a border war, a conflict of philosophies that exploded in harsh words between my husband and our neighbor one day. As described in a previous post, ours is a yard kept in a natural style. The more green, the more wild and vibrant, the better. There are deliberate plantings here and there, but we also welcome the weeds and wildflowers that sprout up among them. In spring, our back yard is a carpet of wild violets. In high summer, a lush tangle of vines creeps along the fence and up the birdhouse pole. In fall, the maple tree that shades our deck drops its helicopter seeds -well- everywhere they can fly. Our front yard is kept shorter out of respect for our neighbors' preferences, but our back yard is kept more or less as Nature intends out of respect for Her preference. We are sparing with the mower and clippers, and we avoid the poisons and chemicals many consider a must for maintaining a perfect lawn.

Conversely, our neighbor takes pride in his well-planned landscaping. His frequently mowed grass is buzz-cut short and requires regular watering during even the mildest dry spells to keep it from parching. Plantings are selected mostly for effect with little consideration for the appropriate environment, but they are tended, watered, fertilized and sprayed with insecticides to ensure their survival. Impudent weeds are swiftly eradicated with liberal herbicide applications. Unauthorized growth is not tolerated, even on allowed plantings, and quickly meets with pruning shears. While our side of the fence is lush, free-form and a haven for all things that creep or fly, his is neat, controlled, and magazine beautiful.

So, there is a basic difference in philosophy. Yet, for many years, we've managed to live relatively peacefully. He complains from time to time, and we bend to address his concerns when we feel they're valid (or when they're not, but preserving harmony may be at stake.) Neither he nor we could really be labelled bad neighbors. Despite the differences, we have been friends.

The problem began when our neighbor decided he could improve the look of our yard by planting several ornamental plants in the small strip of yard on the side of our house that faced his. He did us this questionable favour suddenly one day while we were away, and though he felt his sense of style was far superior to what we had allowed to grow there, the obvious invasion and presumption struck a nerve with my husband. He confronted the neighbor about this disrespect for boundaries (not his first, by the way,) and the argument quickly escalated to a shouting match. In defense, he accused us of weediness. My husband complained of the garbage that tends to blow over from the neighbor's uncovered cans into the side yard, declared his intent to plant that same area with raspberries and demanded that the offending plants be removed. In their anger, every old wound between them was opened, and the encounter was left in bitterness and spite, both of them refusing to talk any further.

It was probably the best thing in the moment. Pride would not allow either to back down, and any more words were liable to be ugly ones. Better to step away until passions had cooled. I encouraged my husband to talk calmly with the neighbor in a few days and resolve the rift, and he agreed. We both recognized that despite his flawed methods, our neighbor was trying to be helpful and likely felt unjustly attacked for his efforts. However, before they had a chance to cool off and make up, we received an official village warning that our weeds were too high, complete with photos taken obviously from the neighbor's yard. While we were still stunned from the first attack, it was followed by three more nitpicking complaints about the condition of our property. It was clear this was going to be a war.

To give proper weight to these notices, I will first tell you that we do not live in one of the suburban Stepford-like subdivisions full of rules about what colour your mailbox can be or other silly conformity laws. While it's true our community has its share of busybody codes added to the books by people with an unnatural interest in the image of the neighborhood, there tends to be a "live and let live" attitude about enforcing them. When there is no risk to health or safety, officials are content to let citizens keep their property as they please. It's one of the things I like about the place. If you're not hurting anyone and there are no complaints, you're free. They even try to encourage neighbors to settle disputes themselves and will generally only get involved when the complainer is insistent. We aren't the only house on the street with tufts of weeds or cracking paint on the garage door. We're not even the worst offenders, but we were the only house receiving warning notices.

I have to admit, my initial reaction was shock and anger. Until this argument, there had been a certain tolerance of our differences. We helped each other out, passed beers over the fence, chatted and sympathized when our neighbor was receiving warning notices in his own dispute with another. He would occasionally grumble about our unruly lawn, and we would occasionally grumble about his use of weed killers, but it wasn't worth losing a friendship. That he would use village code enforcement as a weapon against us in a dispute that began with his own technically illegal act of trespass, especially when he had called such an attack cowardly when it had happened to him, was infuriating. He was attacking Life under my protection to satisfy his petty revenge. He was using the village government to lob arrows at us "anonymously" in a childish escalation of a silly argument. I was too stunned to speak at first, but when that wore off, my comments were not fit to print here.

Friends and relatives we told were full of helpful suggestions for revenge. We had offers of a number of creatively vindictive plans that would have given our neighbor all sorts of troubles of his own to distract him. The mildest of these would have been to report all of his own piddling violations of village code. More severe options would have been downright criminal and would have caused some serious property damage. Angry as I was, the temptation to strike back when attacked was what had gotten us to this point. I've always balked at doing the hurtful thing to win an argument. It means I've lost plenty of them to those who were more willing, but I think I'm happier because of it.

Luckily, my husband also recognized the folly of a counterstrike and agreed that defusing the situation was best. We would comply with the rules and fix the things that needed it, but we would do so in our own way. He would speak to the neighbor and reassert our position without blame or accusations. He would give him a chance to preserve the friendship and restore the balance of tolerance and respect across the border.

For my part, I began to replace the paint on the garage door. A quick touch up in a few spots would have satisfied the letter of the complaint, but I determined to add not just a fresh coat of a neutral colour, but a mural to brighten the space. The suggestion was my husband's. We could answer the complaint about the garage with a statement of our affinity for natural beauty. I would paint the garage with a flourish of prairie grass and pretty weeds. A little passive-aggressive? Yes, probably at the start, and without the other measures toward making peace, our neighbor might have seen it as an attack. But, almost as soon as I began to think about the project, it became a means of transforming the negative to positive.

Although I usually don't work as big as a door, I'm no stranger to the art of painting. I've done plenty of pieces, mostly of natural subjects. So, once I set my mind to the project, I fell into my usual method, planning the style, colours, and composition that would capture what I loved about the subject. Any lingering anger drained away as I got absorbed in the task, what it was, what it said, and how the subtle magic of it might affect a viewer. All the practical work of preparing the surface, mixing the colours, choosing the brushes and applying the paint helped to create an atmosphere that was rich for meditation.

What had begun as a battle had become an opportunity to exercise my creativity, to transform the mundane into something special and to share a bit of my love and respect for the natural world. Faced with possibilities for revenge or submission, we had chosen our own assertive yet peaceful option. What could have ended in bitterness was ending in beauty.

So, we have made up with the neighbor. We have recognized his good intentions and clarified our boundaries. We have made our property a little prettier in a way that others can appreciate as well. The whole experience was a reminder that even troubles can be greeted as a positive thing. A.A. Milne may or may not have realized all the layers of possibility when he wrote it, but the quote is apt: "Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them."