Mow-tivated for Green Spaces

I’ve received several inquiries related to the maintenance of green spaces and parks so I thought I’d share more broadly some information about the City’s current maintenance practice. 

Green spaces are not all treated the same. Some areas of the city are regularly maintained while others are left in a naturalized state. Naturalized areas are not part of the regular mowing cycle and they may eventually be planted with trees, shrubs or wildflowers. There are a number of economic as well as environmental merits to naturalization.

For example, trees and shrubs can mitigate the risk of flooding by capturing rainwater and reducing stormwater runoff. Maintenance costs are also decreased. From an environmental perspective, naturalization allows native plants, birds and other wildlife to flourish. The City’s website has an interactive map (<- -click) that allows you to see which areas of the city’s green spaces are naturalized and which ones fall under the maintained grass schedule.

For areas that are regularly maintained, the City follows varying schedules for mowing (<- - click) Whereas, weed whacking operates on cycles.

Standard, district-level parks and sports fields, along with open spaces, are mowed every 10-14 days with weed whacking around/along fence lines, objects, trees having two maintenance cycles per year. This service level was brought back to 2019 levels as many on Council heard about the importance of park space and seeing your tax dollars at work. 

Mowing schedules don’t always line up with the weed whacking schedules so that is why sometimes you might see some areas that appear unfinished. If you notice an area that hasn’t been completed, the best place to contact is 311 so that it can be tracked and monitored, and so the appropriate crews can be dispatched to take care of it.

Let me know what you think about this parkland maintenance frequency. Do you think green spaces should be mowed and maintained more, about the same, or less?