Metro Vancouver Parks & Green Space

[Sheba]

Eyesore or urban oasis? Vancouver's 'roadside meadows' mow up controversy

A few feet of grass on a busy Vancouver roadway has residents split over a recent decision by the city to refrain from mowing some of its boulevards in a bid to increase biodiversity while combating climate change.

Some, who approve of the urban meadows’ pilot project, are eager for the return of pollinators such as birds and bees the change could bring. Others want their sidewalks back to being free of weeds.

Yaletown resident Peter Meiszner said he first noticed the “unsightly” presence of unkempt grass last month while passing a median along Pacific Street on his way home.

“I was driving back from work and noticed just how tall the grass had gotten,” he said. “It looked terrible.”

By the time the city council candidate arrived home, friends, as well as supporters of his campaign, had messaged Meiszner photographs of the situation. He posted them to Twitter, commenting that the tall grass “leave(s) a poor impression for residents and visitors.”

However, the city said it has intentionally left the grass patch unmown.

In April last year, it launched a pilot program to strategically stop mowing pockets of wild grass and plants in order to provide food and shelter for birds, insects, butterflies and bees, safeguard underlying soil and reduce carbon emissions that lawn-mower use would emit.

Now, the naturalized meadows cover more than 37 hectares of Vancouver — more than double the size of Granville Island — including parts Queen Elizabeth, Killarney, China Creek and 15 other parks and three golf courses.

“As meadows age, they diversify and more wildflower species begin to appear. In support of this, we’ve been seeding a specific mix of native wildflower seed, plugs, plants and bulbs within many of our meadows which will hopefully begin to display themselves over the coming year,” the park board said in an email.

This year, it widened the project’s scope to include patches of grass along boulevards including Pacific Street. Called “roadside meadows,” they’re regularly monitored by city staff and cleaned of litter and debris.

The park board said it plans to continue to “widen the meadow landscape” and is currently in the process of assessing more of Vancouver’s underutilized urban lawn spaces as potential new sites for re-wilding.

...

Miranda Hart, a plant microbiologist and professor at the University of B.C., said letting lawns grow unruly in Vancouver’s urban areas has numerous benefits for the environment.

“When uncut, grass flowers and produces a seed that can feed all sorts of animals. The bigger a plant grows, the more carbon it pulls out of the atmosphere, which reduces the negative impacts of climate change.”

Another way the meadows curb climate change is by protecting the lawns and underlying soil from extreme heat. According to park board data, the meadows were 1.2 degrees cooler than lawns and contained 20 to 30 per cent more moisture within the soil.

The city also mows the meadows if fire risk is escalated, such as during 2021’s heat dome.

...


Vancouver's urban meadows pilot project. Photo by Francis Georgian /PNG

What do you think - to mow or not to mow (yeah I know, cheesy Shakespeare reference )

[Metro-One]

Urban boulevards should be mowed. This comes off as an attempt to greenwash a lazy way to shave a few bucks off the city budget.

Victoria’s Beacon Hill park is a good example of how to place meadows in an urban are, the above is not. It just looks messy and a good place for pests to thrive.

[Migrant_Coconut]

They might as well do away with the grass altogether and plant some flowers and small bushes.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

They might as well do away with the grass altogether and plant some flowers and small bushes.

That would be a much better option than unsightly messy boulevards for increasing biodiversity.

But remember, flowers and shrubbery require maintenance and care, so they can’t save money while pretending to be “green.”

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

That would be a much better option than unsightly messy boulevards for increasing biodiversity.

But remember, flowers and shrubbery require maintenance and care, so they can’t save money while pretending to be “green.”

I did say "small." Native plants like stonecrop or lupine could provide the same kind of ground cover with minimal maintenance.

[jollyburger]

Q: What is that?
A: Oh that's my micro meadow

Credit: https://plantaddicts.com/growing-orn...grass-in-pots/

Again, sure you can say taking 10 acres of land or something like the Arbutus Corridor and creating a meadow will support an ecosystem of birds and other insects. But just stop it with this BS about reducing the carbon footprint of lawn mowers cutting the grass in a boulevard when it's just a drop in the bucket of how much gas they use cutting lawns in the city.

Here's the Park Board documents on the project:

https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/p...hout-city.aspx

I support the larger projects in the parks/golf courses and I don't really care either way about the boulevard.

[Migrant_Coconut]

It's important to note that real meadows also have snakes, bobcats, weasels, owls, and other predators that keep the prey from getting out of control. Really hope this doesn't end up creating even more rats in the neighbourhood.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

It's important to note that real meadows also have snakes, bobcats, weasels, owls, and other predators that keep the prey from getting out of control. Really hope this doesn't end up creating even more rats in the neighbourhood.

Proper meadows do (again, look at Beacon Hill Park) but tiny fragmented islands of lawn along major roads and sidewalks generally aren’t suitable for such predators, and are only good for harboring pests that are far more generalist in nature.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

It's important to note that real meadows also have snakes, bobcats, weasels, owls, and other predators that keep the prey from getting out of control. Really hope this doesn't end up creating even more rats in the neighbourhood.

I mean the rabbits at Jericho Beach are cute but someone needs to start releasing pet rats into those meadows

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

They might as well do away with the grass altogether and plant some flowers and small bushes.

Yeah I'd much rather have low maintenance, nice looking, local plants. It's fine to not want to invest a ton into maintenance and just let stuff grow naturally, but it looks lazy when you do that with existing landscaping that was designed with maintenance in mind.

[jollyburger]

They should tear down the rose garden at Stanley Park and make it into a meadow.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

They might as well do away with the grass altogether and plant some flowers and small bushes.

Lawn is the cheapest way to landscape and yet the City does not even want to have a budget to maintain it. What makes you think they would be delighted at your idea for flowers and bushes?

Richmond, on the other hand, has made some medians look great with flowering plants.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Vin

Lawn is the cheapest way to landscape and yet the City does not even want to have a budget to maintain it. What makes you think they would be delighted at your idea for flowers and bushes?

Richmond, on the other hand, has made some medians look great with flowering plants.

Got a source for that? Labour to maintain landscaping is far more expensive than the plants themselves. Basic grass is boring.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Got a source for that? Labour to maintain landscaping is far more expensive than the plants themselves. Basic grass is boring.

I have to think that gravel may be the cheaper route.

[Migrant_Coconut]

That is, until the gravel scatters into the street and becomes a nuisance.

Originally Posted by Vin

Lawn is the cheapest way to landscape and yet the City does not even want to have a budget to maintain it. What makes you think they would be delighted at your idea for flowers and bushes?

Richmond, on the other hand, has made some medians look great with flowering plants.

The water and labour required to irrigate and cut grass says otherwise. Native wildflowers and ground cover can simply be planted and then forgotten about, and would end up looking much better than No. 3 Road's random shrubs.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That is, until the gravel scatters into the street and becomes a nuisance.



The water and labour required to irrigate and cut grass says otherwise. Native wildflowers and ground cover can simply be planted and then forgotten about, and would end up looking much better than No. 3 Road's random shrubs.

Most grass except for maybe sports fields aren't irrigated. I mean look at the condition of all the grass in parks after last years heat dome.

[LeftCoaster]

Grass is pretty cheap to maintain for a good part of the year, but I think native drought resistant species are the cheapest from a maintenance standpoint, and pretty inexpensive on up front cost too.

They also look better than a boring old lawn that is brown most of summer in my opinion.

[officedweller]

The City mowed the main medians on Pacific Blvd between Davie and Homer or Richards.
They had to close off the inside lanes on both sides to do so.
The mowed areas actually look worse because all you see are patchy clumps of grass/weeds and bare dirt.

[jollyburger]

Must be fun to mow the grass there with all the dogs using that as a communal toilet

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Must be fun to mow the grass there with all the dogs using that as a communal toilet

If there is an ulterior motive for not mowing the grass, it's probably this.