Sandy Bell’s Natural garden

Sandy Bell among the wild primrose of her front yard natural garden.

A Toronto musician decided that she wanted her front yard to become once again a small stretch of original Ontario meadow, with native grasses and flowers serving as a home for butterflies, bees and birds, and as an environmental educational experience for her young son and for passersby. But the City said her natural garden violated the Toronto lawn by-law, fined her and ordered her to cut it down. We went to court for her, saying that she was expressing her fundamental environmental beliefs and that the by-law violated her Charter right to do so. The Court agreed and declared the by-law void, saying that the statement made by her garden about living in harmony with nature was close to the core values underlying s. 2(b) of the Charter. Toronto was forced to amend its by-law to allow natural gardens.

The case is reported in the Canadian Rights Reporter (at 39 C.R.R. (2d) 152), highlighted in Lorraine Johnson’s The New Ontario Naturalized Garden: The Complete Guide to Using Native Plants, and was featured on national television news.