7 Comments

It looks like a lovely meadow! It astonishes me how often councils and local authorities everywhere will mow grassland too early in the year.

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They get a lot of pressure from people who think mown short is neat and tidy and keeps weed seeds away from their lawns.

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I think too many people are obsessed with nature needing to look neat and tidy!

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Same thing happens at my mother's senior apartments in Pointe Claire. Part of the property is too steep to mow, and hosts a profusion of beautiful wild flowers. Unfortunately the landscape crew razes everything in mid summer, leaving behind a sterile patch of stubble. So sad.

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Beautiful.

What would you say are the Maxwell Meadow's essential properties, and so what does it require to be fully itself?

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For me, I can't speak for others but I suspect from social media responses that I am far form alone, the essential property is that this is a small and not very important pocket of neglected land that somehow has been saved from development. Mixed ownership and possible soil contamination may keep it that way. It's scruffy and that's nice in a way and at mid summer it has few weeks in which it wears its colours with pride ... exactly the time that in previous years "the system" has chosen to mow it down. It's easy to overlook small neglected pockets like this - let's ensure they survive. To be fully itself it mostly needs to be left alone though there may be a future need to manage the appearance of the dreaded Norway maple etc 😉

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I hope your plea is heard.

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