Seattle's Proposed New Green Code Off the Table - For Now

The decision on the New Green Code for Seattle, that's alarmed gardeners, nurserypeople and even urban farmers, has been postponed. Thanks to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show for posting an update late this afternoon.

The City of Seattle listened to the landscape industry, and to the many of you who commented on Plant Talk and Facebook, and they've shelved the new codes for now.

The plan is to reconsider them jointly with industry professionals in 2013.

Meanwhile, take a look at Scott Vergara's eloquent letter in support of common sense, the nursery industry and plant choice,  as well as all the reaction it stirred up, here, on my blog post from August 28.

Comments

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[CP]

This is the very first I have heard of this. Saw it in a link from the Seattle Times web site.

I don't know a sequoia from a tulip, or that's my standing joke. But my partner does. He's a major green thumb, and he has overseen the complete renewal of our yard.

When we met, he looked at everything and said, "You really need help." No kidding, I replied. Not only are we a great fit as people, but the divine roll of the dice brought me a gardener. Could I be any luckier?

"What do you want in the garden?" he asked.

I told him it was a fair question, but that I couldn't respond in any detail. So I gave goals:

1. I have lived in various places in the country, and wherever I've lived I always wanted to really get to know the area. So the garden should be a Pacific Northwest garden, not a garden with exotic plants that will grow here but aren't part of the landscape here.

2. I want it to look good.

3. I want it to be fragrant.

4. I want vines on the trellises on the fence that surrounds the garden.

5. I want to grow our own salads.

Since then, I've spent many thousands of dollars. I feel like I should own stock at Swanson's, which is a fantastic nursery. The gardens get a constant stream of compliments from people in the neighborhood. This year we had a huge salad crop: different varieties of lettuce, bitter greens, beans, spices, edible flowers, potatoes, and (thanks to strategic cutting of a couple of trees and construction of a raised bed in a sunny area) a patch that now contains more than 100 tomatoes.

Are Japanese maples "native?" How about violas, pansies, lettuce, and my favorite spice, Italian parsley? How about the Asian pear tree, and the multigrafted apple and cherry trees? The nasturitiums?

And would I have had to get the city's permission every time we went to the nursery to get more plants? Hire a landscape architect to draw up plans? Where's the spontaneity? Where's the fun of finding something that you want to put in the garden, and then putting it in?

I'm going to ask my partner whether our gardens meet the proposed ordinance's requirements. I suspect they do, but I find the whole idea to be incredibly obnoxious and even dictatorial in a petty sort of way. As far as I'm concerned, this is evidence that the City of Seattle's planning department is tremendously overstaffed and needs to be cut in half.

These people obviously have way, way too much time on their hands if they are actually wanting to require every gardener to get the city's approval before planting their own garden. It truly boggles my mind that they'd ever dare to do something like this.

[CP]

So I asked my partner about the ordinance, and he shook his head and laughed. "Really?" he said. "Really?!"

He thinks Seattle is trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead of forcing everyone to get the city's approval before planting a garden, the city should do what Portland did 10 years ago and draw up a list of plants that nurseries are forbidden to sell.

He points out that most annuals would be forbidden under the ordinance, and so would ordinary lawns because grass is not native to the Pacific NW. Much of what he planted around here isn't native to the Pacific NW, but is native to maritime climates, and does really well here.

My conclusion is that I'm not the only one who doesn't know a tulip from a sequoia. The city's planning department doesn't know what it's talking about either. The difference is that I don't try to tell other people what they can and cannot do.

[Deirdre]

Some people would like to turn back time. Making Seattle into a native landscape just isn't going to happen. It's too late. Ban noxious plants. That would be a very good thing.