In Mississauga’s manicured suburban neighborhoods keeping up with the Joneses is being confronted by a beauty that goes beyond aesthetics

“I'm retired and my time is totally consumed fighting this bylaw.”

In 2021, Mississauga resident Wolf Ruck first discovered the concept of biodiversity and habitat gardens through the 1000 Islands Master Gardeners, a network of 27 local groups dedicated to promoting sustainable gardening, and part of the province-wide Master Gardeners of Ontario Inc. (MGOI).

A habitat garden grown by one of Master Gardeners of Ontario’s members.

(1000 Islands Master Gardeners)

Inspired by the group’s research and driven by a desire to support bees and local biodiversity, while sequestering carbon, Ruck embraced the idea, allowing his lawn to grow naturally into a thriving habitat.

Then, one day, he looked out his window—and the grass was gone.

“Imagine, you're looking out your window, and suddenly you see somebody walking around your lawn,” Ruck said. 

It happened again. And again. Four or five times, until he finally put up a sign on his telephone pole: "Pardon the weeds, we are feeding the bees."

Bees on goldenrod in Wolf Ruck’s habitat garden.

(Wolf Ruck)

“It was very, very disconcerting and disturbing to have someone trespass onto your property and without asking permission, without saying anything, just going ahead and decimating part of my tall grass and weeds,” Ruck told The Pointer.

But the real battle was just beginning.

Later in 2021, a bylaw officer knocked on his door, responding to a neighbour's complaint about “the weeds and grass.”

“You have to cut the tall grass and weeds to less than 20 centimetres,” the officer told him.

“You mean those goldenrods and milkweeds?,” Ruck asked while pointing to his habitat garden.

“Everything,” the bylaw officer responded. “People get allergic.”

At that moment, Ruck realized there was no distinction being made between different plants. Canada goldenrod, he knew, is not an allergen and it’s often mistaken for ragweed—the real culprit behind seasonal allergies. 

Goldenrod is a vital food source for pollinators and birds. Milkweed, too, is essential for monarch butterflies, a species listed as endangered under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA).

“I educated him a little bit about plants. He educated me about how the bylaw works,” Ruck said, noting that Mississauga does not have officers or inspectors with training in biology or botany—despite Ontario’s Weed Control Act requiring every municipality to have a designated weed inspector on staff. 

The Act also provides an appeal process to the chief weed inspector, but in Ruck's case, the officer couldn't provide the specifics he was looking for.

The Ontario Weed Control Act primarily aims to protect agricultural and horticultural operations from being affected by seeds from certain plants, Ruck explained. 

Under the Act, if a property is more than a kilometre away from such operations, it’s exempt from its rules—and in his residential area, there are no agricultural or horticultural operations within that distance. 

 Mississauga’s ‘Tall Grass and Nuisance Weeds’ By-law 125-2017.

(City of Mississauga)

Mississauga’s Tall Grass and Nuisance Weeds By-law includes a list of 25 nuisance weeds. Nowhere does it mention either Goldenrod or Milkweed. 

The officer also admitted he was surprised to be called to a residential property. “Most of the time,” he told Ruck while handing him a Notice of Contravention, “these complaints come from industrial areas, abandoned lots, or properties in actual disrepair.”

The push for manicured lawns in North America began in the late nineteenth century, inspired by colonial English landscape traditions. Wealthy landowners transformed small gardens into aesthetic spaces modelled after English lawns, a 2021 Ecological Design Lab paper explained. 

By the early twentieth century, lawns became a luxury, symbolizing economic success, with only the affluent able to afford the labour-intensive care. Many relied on enslaved labour, and maintaining a pristine lawn became a social expectation. 

By the mid-twentieth century, lawns spread across suburban areas, largely maintained by white, middle- to high-income residents. What started as a cultural symbol revealed deeper colonial and class dynamics tied to land ownership.

Over time, societal values and environmental concerns have evolved, but bylaws regulating lawn care have largely remained unchanged.

Under Mississauga’s bylaw, if a homeowner fails to comply after being handed a Notice of Contravention, bylaw officers or City employees can enter private property and remove vegetation at any time—without further warning.

Since 2021, bylaw enforcement officers have entered Ruck’s property to cut the “tall grass and weeds,” and each time the charges were added to his property tax.

Wolf Ruck’s naturalized yard in 2023.

(Lorraine Johnson)

Despite Ruck's efforts to explain his environmental, scientific, and legal reasons for the naturalized lawn, the City remained unwilling to engage with him. 

“The City, literally from the mayor on down, was totally unresponsive in terms of providing any substantive information that would essentially cause them to provide me with an exception to their enforcement policies,” Ruck said, noting public servants should not be allowed to simply ignore the constituents who elected them. “The reason is because politicians are mainly concerned about votes. and because I'm the odd man out here, why would they see to my requests when they know that, generally speaking, the neighborhood prefers to have traditional lawns, as opposed to my kind of approach to maintaining your private property?”

In July 2023, Ruck received his fourth Notice of Contravention, followed by enforcement in August. To prevent further damage to his naturalized yard, Ruck filed a Notice of Application in Ontario’s Superior Court in November 2023. After the Court dismissed his case in May 2024, he appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Despite the ongoing appeal, Mississauga issued a fifth Notice of Contravention in May 2024, prompting Ruck to file a Notice of Motion to Stay enforcement. But this motion was also dismissed, as the City's claims were largely upheld without addressing Ruck’s legal arguments.

On February 24, Ruck secured a major victory in his legal battle to reform grass and weed bylaws and ensure more reasonable enforcement. 

At the Ontario Court of Appeal, Ruck argued that Mississauga’s actions—mowing his naturalized garden twice—were unjust and arbitrary under administrative law, highlighting concerns over how enforcement has been handled in his case.

Since the case raised constitutional issues, the judges sent it back to the Ontario Superior Court for a fresh hearing. 

In 1996, Toronto resident Sandy Bell challenged a $50 fine for having a naturalized front yard in the city's east end, where she was cited for “excessive” growth of grass and “weeds.” Bell argued that the bylaw violated her Charter right to freedom of expression.

After appealing the fine, the Justice of the Peace found her guilty. Bell appealed. By that time, Toronto had amended the bylaw, replacing the term “excessive growth” with a height restriction of 20 cm for grass and weeds. The parties agreed to proceed with the appeal, which was based on the former bylaw’s violation of her Charter rights.

The judge ruled the old bylaw "void for vagueness" and therefore "invalid and unenforceable," also stating that it unjustifiably violated Bell’s Charter right to freedom of expression. 

Although the case didn’t address the constitutionality of the new bylaw, the judge noted that a similar challenge to newer bylaw restrictions, like those in Mississauga, would likely have the same outcome.

"Freedom of expression is a Charter right, and while something may look unkempt to one person, to another it could mean this is nature, it’s beautiful—and that’s my point of view. For me, it’s alive," Ruck expressed.

The court emphasized that for Ruck’s right to maintain a natural garden to be infringed, the City would have to prove that his garden posed a significant danger, outweighing his Charter right to express his environmental beliefs.

Ruck is currently in the process of preparing his next application for a judicial review, which will be submitted at the discretion of the Superior Court. He’s hopeful that the hearing will happen before spring, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.

“It’s been a five year battle. Literally, my whole life is basically focused on this,” Ruck said, pointing out the irony that a “modern city” like Mississauga, which recently celebrated becoming the 29th Bee City in Canada, continues to oppose biodiverse lawns.

“It’s completely counterproductive and self-contradictory. The City promotes biodiversity and climate responsibility, but then enforces a bylaw that undermines those very goals. It’s as if the left-hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” 

Many environmentalists and ecologists are beginning to challenge the value of manicured lawns as climate change and biodiversity loss have taken center stage in policy discussions. 

The Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, and environmental advocate Lorraine Johnson recently issued an open letter urging municipal staff, elected officials, and related associations to support bylaw reform, advocating for revisions that promote and protect habitat gardens, fostering biodiversity and overall well-being.

“The science is clear—creating habitats for pollinators benefits the climate, biodiversity, and beyond. While some connections may not be immediately obvious, native meadow and prairie plants play a crucial role in stormwater management. Their deep roots, far exceeding those of turf grass, promote water infiltration, reducing runoff into storm sewers and easing the burden on municipal systems. Encouraging these plantings and removing barriers to their growth can save municipalities money while protecting rivers, lakes, and groundwater,” Johnson, who has spent over 30 years advocating for weed and grass bylaw reform, told The Pointer.

In Pelham, a recent study estimated the value of the town's natural assets at over $585 million in stormwater management and flood prevention—equivalent to the cost of replacing these services with traditional infrastructure.

The deeply rooted plants also enhance carbon storage in the soil, “a vital carbon sink,” whereas turf grass contributes virtually nothing in this regard, she explained. 

“The ecological and financial benefits extend to water conservation as well—once established, native plants require little to no supplementary watering, preserving a precious resource.”

Along with bylaw reform, the organizations are calling for municipalities to implement training for bylaw enforcement; to lead by example with ecological gardening practices in public spaces; and launch outreach programs to shift public attitudes and behaviours.

The Town of Caledon's website states, "No grass or weeds can be higher than 20 cm (8")."

(Town of Caledon)

“Unless there were some kind of provincial legislation in each province that required municipalities to have grass and weeds or property standards bylaws that only had limitations based on health and safety, we have to fight these fights one at a time,” Johnson said, expressing her support for Ruck.

“We have a climate change action plan. We need to have bylaws that enable the same goals.”

Lorraine Johnson and Wolf Ruck in Ruck’s habitat garden.

(Lorraine Johnson)

In Peel region, Mississauga, Caledon, and Brampton all currently uphold similar bylaws that favor traditional manicured lawns. But change may be on the horizon—in a presentation on March 19, Brampton staff recommended changes to its bylaw to give residents “more freedom over their approach to gardening on their property including the option of maintaining more sustainable and natural gardens.”

“There's so many ways that so many of us feel intense climate anxiety right now. We're terrified in the direction that things are going, we're very worried about the future, and so many of us feel helpless. Well, creating habitat and gardening, in support of biodiversity, which habitat gardening is something that we can all do,” 

“It's something that we can do that has not only all of these positive environmental benefits but also has personal mental health benefits. I think that's something we all learned in the pandemic that being outside, engaging with nature is crucial to human health, mental and physical health and community health; and habitat gardens are an incredibly great way to engage with nature and all of its healing benefits for us.”

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