Tai Montanarella takes pride in her garden, which consists of more than a hundred species of native plants and is speckled with tufts of sedge, a grass-like plant that grows from 6 to 18 inches, making it so tall that the blades can tip back over towards the ground.

In Pelham Manor, that’s a problem.

Montanarella came home one day in May and found a violation notice from the Manor’s inspector of buildings pasted on the outside of her sliding-glass door, declaring that her carefully curated garden violated the village’s property maintenance code. 

Specifically, the Manor accused her of violating section F of Code 157-5, which forbids “heavy undergrowth and accumulation of plant growth which are unsightly, noxious or detrimental to health.” Further, according to the ordinance, “hedges and shrubs shall be kept pruned or trimmed. Grass shall not be permitted to exceed six inches in growth.”

As written, the ordinance appears to target residents who allow their yards to fall into a state of complete neglect. But in writing up Montanarella, the Manor has charged a woman who spends a significant amount of time cultivating her garden. The fine for a first time violation is between $100 and $200, according to the code, but Montanarella is not a first-time offender. She received a similar notice in June of 2024 and resolved the issue, without having to pay a fine, by trimming her plants.

Now she hopes she can use the incident to encourage the Manor to update its landscaping code.

On July 21, she came before the Manor’s trustees to ask them to “rethink our maintenance priorities.” Soft-spoken but determined, Montanarella explained that she purposely got rid of invasive species in her yard and replaced them with native plants and shrubs, which were better for the environment. “I respectfully propose that enforcement of maintenance codes shift from aesthetic uniformity to actual public health and environmental hazards such as the spread of invasive species,” she said. “Updating our code to reflect these priorities would better serve the entire community.”

Mayor Jennifer Monachino Lapey thanked Montanarella for airing her views, adding that the Manor’s approach to landscaping issues in recent years, “very much embraces and I think puts forth the principles and the tenets that you’re advocating for.”

At the same time, Lapey said Montanarella’s violation notice is a matter of black and white with regards to the law and that she would have to make her case before the Village Manager, Lindsey Luft. “A code violation is handled by our operations people, and that’s a quasi-legal situation,” Lapey said. “You’re going to have to work that out with Village Hall. If there’s a code on the books, we have enforcement officers, so that has to be handled with respect to the current code.  And Manager Luft and her code compliance team will determine whether you’re in compliance, because we all are bound by the code as it sits today.”

Asked about the case, Ms. Luft sent the following statement:  “The Village of Pelham Manor enforces our code in a uniform manner. With regard to a code modification, any change in policy or legislation is carefully reviewed. The Village Code applies to all residents of the Village, and feedback from the entire collective is taken into consideration.”

Montanarella–an active member of the Environmental Coalition of the Pelhams (EcoPel)–has worked on several environmental projects with Girl Scout troops, the Village of Pelham Manor, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. In 2021, she worked with Pelham Manor to carry out a native planting in Veterans’ Park, removing grass and replacing it with native shrubs.

Montanarella strongly believes in the importance of native plants. “It’s discouraging that local codes continue to stand in opposition to native plantings when these plants are well-documented solutions for managing stormwater, supporting pollinators, and building resilience in the face of extreme weather,” she said in an interview.

Many landscapes in Pelham contain non-native species. “When people look around, it makes sense because they’re so used to this,” she said. “But once you start to pull back the mechanics of how we care for our land, you begin to notice the lack of animals and birds and flowers, and even just our natural landscapes.” She pointed out that non-native species require frequent maintenance and chemicals such as fertilizers and herbicides, which can make them time-consuming and costly to maintain. 

When Montanarella moved into her current house, there were only four species of plants in her garden. She removed invasive shrubs, barberry, and grasses, and replaced them with native species. Today, she has over 120 species of plants, none of which are invasive.

“We want to come home to a place that’s clean and tidy, but we’re finding that this can’t be the land around us” she said. “Nature needs a mess.” Montanarella stressed that “we have to change our standard of beauty, aesthetics, and care.” 

At the trustees meeting, Lapey sounded sympathetic to Montanarella’s arguments about the importance of native plants, but the women butted heads on the topic of grass that was six inches tall. It appears beyond dispute that Montanarella’s sedge is longer than the Manor’s ordinance allows. Her argument is that ticks and mosquitos, which can carry diseases, thrive in areas with standing water and that her sedge–which is a plant and not grass–does not carry an increased risk of ticks.

“I have read materials where ticks do hide in grass that’s over six inches,” Lapey responded. “So we can agree to disagree. We’re happy to look at it again, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable amount. It’s not saying keep your grass at one inch. I think six inches for most people is a reasonable number, but we’re happy to look at it again. I can’t promise you we’re going to change that.”

Montanarella plans to continue her environmental advocacy and volunteer work through EcoPel to raise awareness about the value of healthy yards and native plants, and to help people be able to identify invasive plants. 

Meanwhile, she’ll keeping asking Pelham Manor to change its landscaping code.  “I hope our local leadership can begin to see this not as a violation but as a vital contribution to shared environmental stewardship,” she said.