The man in the article was just trying to have his plants grow by themselves. He tookconstant care of them, and made sure that none of the plants he had were invasive. Despite all ofthis however, the city still gave him violations, even though it is stated that this kind of thing isencouraged. An important part of the article that I saw was that the officer that toured his homesaid that there was no planning involved in the growth of the plants. However, just a line or soabove, it said that Vest took him on a tour around his home, and told him his future plans for thegarden.

One point that I saw was that he has had his yard like this for years now. Only now arethey giving him citations. He is trying to contribute to something that Edwardsville became inJune, the Pollinator Pathway City. This basically states how they are open to the pollination ofnative plans via bees, butterflies, etc. Vest was trying to contribute to that cause, and instead of itbeing helpful to the city, they deemed it a violation. This, to me, seems a little counterintuitive.Edwardsville was the first city in Illinois to become a Pollinator Pathway City, but they are goingagainst it by getting rid of the yards and gardens that people have to contribute to this. He wasable to go along with this for a while, but recently the city noticed and eventually got rid of theyard in its entirety.

I feel that this is not fair to Vest, he was just trying to be a contributor and also trying tohelp the city of Edwardsville. In return, the city got rid of his yard and his native plants.