METAIRIE, La. — A couple in Metairie was excited to see wildflowers bloom in May after they scattered seeds in their front lawn earlier in the year.
But now Angie and Patrick Madore are fighting Jefferson Parish to keep their native plant garden after receiving a notice that they are violating grass and weed rules.
"I got my masters in environmental law from Loyola and in that program, we realized it could be cool to set up an environmental experiment in our lawn," Angie Madore said.
"It's a mix of annuals, biannual and perennials so next year if we keep it, it will look totally different it will be new flowers that come up,” Patrick Madore said.
The couple said they wanted to draw pollinators to their Metairie home in the Airline Park area.
"It might seem small and silly but we thought, 'What's a beautiful way we could support our native environment?' and honestly we thought it would look really cool. We thought it would be pretty and people would enjoy it, and in some cases, we were wrong," Angie Madore said.
Over the last five weeks, they've received several notices of violation on their front door from the Jefferson Parish Department of Code Compliance and Enforcement for having weeds higher than eight inches. They have been asked to cut them down or risk paying a fine.
"Someone called in a complaint. I asked who, they said it was an anonymous neighbor," Madore said.
After the notice, they put up a wire fence and signs. One reads, 'Pardon the weeds, we are feeding the bees.' Some have suggested they plant their native garden in their backyard instead, but the Madores said the idea was to share the native plants with their neighbors.
"We wanted people to see. We have kids in our neighborhood, we have a child ourselves. It’s cool to see, 'look at the flowers blooming,'" Madore said.
The Director of Jefferson Parish Department of Code Enforcement and Compliance told our partners at nola.com, "This patch of the front yard does not contain cultivated flowers but rather contains growth of flowers and landscaping which is uncontrolled."
"I rented a tiller from Home Depot to till the soil, planted seeds, that’s the definition of cultivating and these are flowers," Patrick Madore said.
They are filing an appeal and waiting on a hearing court date.
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