Noxious weed is a legal designation referring to exotic species that have significant negative impacts on the environment and/or agriculture, such as Prosopis juliflora and Hydrilla verticillata. Plenty of “weeds” don’t fall under that category.
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Reminds me of a river gorge tour I was invited to a few years ago… it was at night and they installed colored lights and speakers all along the path, putting everything in unnatural colors and blasting music at you while walking through. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it but I felt it’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced: https://www.klamm-kaprun.at/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/sigmund-thun-klamm-14-compressor.jpg Although your garden gnome cave looks even worse 
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I had a similar reaction, but I was primed for disappointment after seeing the fake flowers on cacti first, so the bar was already lowered.
This commentary puts a bit of blame onto perceived preferences of younger buyers, but it also points out that succulents are marketed as easy to care for plants, whereas in reality they are just slow dying, so who cares about photosynthesis, I guess?
If they they can keep selling these painted monstrosities to customers as though it’s a throw-away plant like flower boquets, I guess that explains it?
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In Albuquerque, a native Solanum - silver leaf nightshade - is listed in the city weed ordinance
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Well, that nightshade can be pretty bad when it takes over a xeriscaped yard (and tough on the hands to remove).
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Then we better have a healthy population of Manduca caterpillars 
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Can silverleaf nightshade growth even keep up with Manduca caterpillars’ appetite? I’ve had several of them decimate a carribean red habañero plant before, not just foliage and flowers but nearly ripe peppers too, for example.
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Can somebody be so nice and explane to me what HOA is and means?
Thanks in advance!
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It stands for Homeowner’s Association. Here’s the wikipedia explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association
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Oh, but such a wonderful host for interesting insects like Tingidae, and Cassidinae.
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This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
I just finished reading your post about the HOA having a problem with your native plants. The only thing I noticed about ours is that the people running for president have an agenda already, usually a grudge against another neighbor. So they get their friends to vote them in and the agenda: a neighbor’s rooster, a child’s pet, among the hens, is forced to be removed. Then the president and family move out the following year. Same thing happened another time. We have weird neighbors. I’ve had a complaint about our dogs barking and they considered him a nuisance dog. That neighbor even put an alarm on his fence pointing to our yard that would go off when a nuisance bark was heard. It never went off!
Our dogs bark at people walking by, mail truck always and other dogs. That’s normal barking and we are always out there with them when they are in the back yard. A nuisance bark is a repetitive bark, evenly spaced apart and barked the same way - from 1 to ? number of barks the whole time and can last for 10 minutes or hours. I was outside with our dog and the neighbor dog was nuisance barking and we were blamed! I told the neighbor complaining that he wasn’t my dog. He didn’t believe me. His wife was even weirder!
So as previously stated, I’d also suggest getting the native plant society involved, the bees and flower groups and maybe they’ll put tables with information about their purposes and what they suggest to others to protect the bees, insects, pollinators, etc. I know that there are photos on the internet showing a grocery store full of fruits and vegetables besides a photo showing what would not be available if we didn’t have pollinators. It’s pretty powerful to make an impression on uneducated people about the importance of pollinators!
We are growing native plants after we removed invasive vines that had climbed to the top of trees taller than our home. We had dead English Ivy falling off for a year or more! When a daughter and family came to visit and she saw the amount of moss I planted in our yard, she asked if our HOA allowed it? I wasn’t worried because it saves on water, no mowing needed and hand pick the weeds. Once the moss gets thick, the weed seeds won’t be able to get a hold on the soil. Weed, water and walk! All the moss needs is misting, don’t even get the dirt wet, and walk all over it, that helps with adhesion. Luckily some yards have more moss than ours and it’s mixed in with the grass. Our neighborhood was built among trees so there are “natural areas” in between our yard and neighbors on either side, we have a corner lot! Our moss was found underneath grass that I pulled up ! Others were collected from neighbors with permission! Then we planted ECO-LAWN which is a blend of native grass seeds that you water very heavily the first year because the roots will grow down up to 18” in depth on one hillside that’s steep. After that no water is needed unless you have several days of extreme drought. The ECO-LAWN may not grow in your area yet I’m sure there’s a company that puts a mix of native grasses that does the same thing. Now we let ours grow as long as possible and once it gets so tall, the blades fall over and we have waves of green! It looks beautiful! It can be kept as a “manicured lawn” by mowing, yet you’d only need to mow it 3 times a year. I only suggested that in case the HOA gets really stuffy about needing grass paths or something to make your planting “beds” more ‘organized’. Personally I prefer a messy garden and it’s beneficial to insects. The hollow stems of dead plants are sometimes used by mason bees and other insects to hide out in winter. Other dead material is used to make bedding and nest for those that use them. And as they decompose, that benefits the soil.
Darn, that was another long post 
I do try to keep them shorter, it’s just that I’ve always been this way.
Hopefully, you’ve been able to get your situation settled to your satisfaction! The topic unfortunately closed yet I was hoping it was finally cleared up for you!
Remember, we do it for the birds and bees! The birds need ‘clean bugs’ to eat and not dying with pesticides on them or ingested by them! 
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One of the forum moderators is able to re-open the other post and move your message (@thebeachcomber please https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/city-ordinances-and-hoa-rules/35257)
To answer a few of your points
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I’m not in an HOA; this was a city code enforcement violation
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No moss or lawns in the desert, but I have plenty of native grasses
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I have plenty of “ammunition” to defend myself; situation remains unresolved because city never responded
This community was very supportive of my situation and provided good suggestions.
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I agree that whenever I’ve googled some desert areas, I’ve seen bright green lawns fenced in with obviously the desert right on the other side of the fence and wondered how that could be. Either fake grass or a lot of water wasted? I’ve seen lawns in Florida that are mostly palm size stones/rocks with often yucca plants and others scattered in. Here in NC we have green lawn that needs to be cut year round. Except some people plant the zoysia/Augustine type of grasses that brown out when hot and go back to green when the height of summer is over. Unfortunately that seed gets scattered to nearby lawns and is invasive and difficult to remove. With double layers of rhizomes, it’s impossible to keep up. My biggest worry is that I wonder if native plants can push through the thick mat of this type of grass? So far I’ve had to transplant natives away when those grasses creep closer to my plants. We’ll be moving to Michigan in a few years and I can handle snow, so I’m figuring out what natives I can bring up with me. I’m glad you can rest easy and hope nothing more will be said.
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Hey guys I’m about to start the process of turning my lawn into native flowering ground cover. I want to check my hoa rules but its been hard to find. How doni check my hoa rules 
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As a member, they should send you a copy of the covenants if you ask. Be sure to Google your city/county name and weed ordinances too. Also, your local water utility may have rebates for converting your lawn.
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Well, in Phoenix, it would be wasted water. You have HOAs that insist on Kentucky Bluegrass. Interestingly, many of these lawns also have nursery-purchased Saguaro that are roughly the size and shape of whiskey barrels, and will die an early death from root rot.
A friend of ours used to live in Tucson. Her apartment complex’s landscaping was mostly xeric and appropriate for the climate—except for the one, kitchen-table-sized square of bright green grass labeled (no kidding) “Scenic Area”.
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" What’s THAT?"
" That what they called ‘grass’ . …"
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Me again!
According to that list of weeds, I have purposely planted Spring Beauties in the middle tier in our front yard. When we bought the house, there was a very steep hill from the front door to the street so we had dry stack stone walls installed to divide it into 3 level tiers. The Spring Beauties are spreading wonderfully as we have never put down any weed killers in any part of our lawn. I will “paint with an artist brush” RoundUp on the invasive St Augustine grass that came with the new fill dirt brought in. I paint the grass leaves only and it does kill that offensive, invasive weed. When we move next year, I’m going to have an application set out so the next owners can finish to get the yard certified as a natural habitat. We started this and it’s over 3/4 finished, they won’t have much more to do.
I will also write down not to put any herbicide on the middle tier if any. Spring Beauties are in the purslane family and they will be killed. We will be bringing fresh SB seeds with us when move as they can grow in the (cough) “lawn.” We’re hoping for a real stream to be on the property as we added a very natural looking 50 ft stream in the backyard. No chemicals are added, and it’s never been power washed as all the other waterfalls and ponds that the company’s clients have done yearly. Since a lot of tiny stones were sprinkled in, if anyone power washes the stream, they’ll be spraying tiny stones into the yard!
Anyway, if we have to live in an HOA neighborhood, and we will tell our realtor NOT to even look at properties that are, we would fight to keep natives and our very tall mix of native fescues that bend over if not cut regularly. It’s so beautiful and green! Just like the moss, no cutting needed and no water either once it’s established! Less work and more free time!
The clover that pops up yearly in the middle and lower tiers gets looked over very carefully before I hand pull it. I’ve collected nearly 733 4-leaf clovers and 287 5-leaf clovers. Added the last 13 in the past 4 days.
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