[mikekchar]

Be careful of your city bylaws. I grew a wildflower garden in my backyard in Canada and got a complaint once. Given that the neighbour to one side asked be to do it makes me think it might have been the neighbour on the other side :-) I actually didn't mind cutting it down because I was moving that year anyway, but it pays to talk with your neighbours and find out what the city requires. It is especially important to understand what is and is not a noxious weed and to be on top of keeping them out of your sanctuary.

[forkandwait]

Actually, there is a pro-organic, pollinator and wildlife friendly program in my city whose lead I am following. Another reason I don't move....

My only plan for the summer is to seed the lawn with clover, water weekly, and keep it cut at the top height of my mower.

How big was your garden, and how visible from the neighbors? In the front I can see that, but who cares in the back, at least in my area.

[mikekchar]

Ah in that case I don't think you'll have a problem. I had white clover, camomile and timothy hay (the latter I don't recommend, but it's an annual, so easy to recover from ;-) ) in the front and didn't get any complaints about it.

The back yard was HUGE. I had wild daisies, black eyed susans, and a variety of other wild flowers. The previous year I'd grown it in order to bring in butterflies, etc and my one neighbour really liked it because they could see it from their second floor windows. The way I did it was to grow it into about the middle of July and after most of the flowering was finished to mow it down.

I think the other neighbour was trying to sell their house that year and instead of just telling me they made a complaint to the city. In fact, I'm willing to bet that it wasn't my neighbours (who I was friendly with) but their real estate agent. Like I said, I was not worried about it at all, but having the city inspector to come to your house and demand that you cut your garden is somewhat stressful (especially if you were planning to grow it out).

You may get some push back from neighbours about the white clover because it is fairly invasive, but probably there isn't anything they can do about it. Anyway, good luck with your lawn! I really enjoyed mine. If you feel like it, mix in some camomile when you overseed. I think you won't regret it (low growing, super soft, smells nice and pretty yellow flowers if you let it grow long enough).

[worik]

On my lawn I have clover, daisies, dandelions, and fescue. Fescue is the only one I planted.

The bees are quite pleased

We have a lot of rain in Waitati and I do not water it. Three years ago it dried out and large parts went brown. Came back happily when the rains came back

[jamisteven]

Sounds like you live in a HOA

[folkrav]

HOAs are exceedingly rare in Canada, outside condo associations.

[dsfyu404ed]

The GP's neighbor sounds like they have their panties in a bunch but going out of your way not to offend/annoy those kind of people is just the reality in those kind of places. If you want to live somewhere "nice" but not the middle of nowhere you need to conform. Unfortunately things like having a large garden, having parties, having a project boat, or collecting late 80s vintage cars do not fit within the scope of "conforming" for the purposes of the upper middle class suburban neighborhoods that most HNers will settle down in. The GP didn't conform so his neighbor complained and someone sent him a letter on official letterhead. It doesn't really matter who's letterhead it's on.

Only well off suburban/urban communities the resources to justify mediating disputes to the tune of "my neighbor's hobbies look/sound/smell offensive". If you want freedom to do what you want on your own property you need your neighbors to either have bigger problems or be far enough away to not care. Those places don't generally have good schools or aren't within commuting distance of lots of good jobs. There's tradeoffs to every approach.

[rootusrootus]

This is something I have never really understood. If your neighbors can hear or smell your hobby, then you are not really staying contained on your own property and neighbors who complain are not trampling your liberties, just asserting their own.

[dsfyu404ed]

Not whining over the slightest inconvenience is part of existing in civil society. Complaining about your neighbor using an air hammer on steel at 11pm, ok. Complaining about your neighbor using an air hammer on steel at normal hours = not ok.

It all comes down to being reasonable and in middle upper class suburbia the Overton window of what is reasonable has moved to favor the complainers over the people who want to go about their lives to the point where those places have seen fit to legislate (or enforce via HOA) what is "reasonable" and that inevitably turns into a race to the bottom.

[rootusrootus]

Conversely, having some consideration for your neighbors is part of existing in civil society.

I live in a neighborhood that very closely fits the definition of upper middle class suburbia, and the power balance is most assuredly not in favor of complainers. Quite the opposite in fact.

I also think you do a disservice to this discussion by suggesting it is just innocent people going about their lives that are being held back by the evil complainers. From my perspective it is the assholes driving their damn two-cycle quads up and down the street for hours every morning where there's more than half an inch of snow on the ground. These folks are not going about their lives, they are entertaining themselves at the neighborhood's expense.

I detest HOAs but a well-run community benefits from a collective agreement on what constitutes 'reasonable'.

[ryandrake]

Got a kick out of your air hammer example because I happen to be working on a project that involves me using an air hammer (among other loud pneumatic tools) on many weeknights. The key was I actually took the time before starting to gasp sit down and talk to my neighbors and agree on things like noise level, hours I’d be working, keeping the garage door shut, etc. Lucked out by having reasonable neighbors, but you can usually head off trouble by talking with people as if they were grown adults. Ended up costing me nothing but a new quieter air compressor, and no visits from the city yet.

[OJFord]

But the line is broad, grey, and subjective.

Which is why we have officials with letterheads to mediate.

[celticninja]

Hearing or smelling something from a neighbouring property is just something you have to live with. Just like leaves that fall off a neighbour's trees into your property, may be a pain to tidy up, but that's just life. Sound and smell travel, should I have pave over my garden because you have allergies or don't like the smell of my roses or the manure that I feed them?

[ghaff]

In a number of states including Massachusetts, there are towns that have right-to-farm ordinances. They're not just anything goes obviously but the basic intent is to tell people that they really shouldn't move to a fairly rural old farm town and then complain that their neighbor is planting corn, raising goats, or generally doesn't have a neatly manicured lawn.