SHARPSBURG — When critics imply that Deane Joyce is growing a meadow on his lawn because he is too lazy to mow his grass, he can’t help but laugh.

Joyce and his wife, Jennifer, estimate since buying the land in 2000, they have spent more than 10,300 hours cultivating, planting and maintaining the grassland habitat that fills most of their three-acre property off Mondell Road near Sharpsburg.

“It’s a lot of work,” Deane Joyce said. “You’re taking three hours a day. It’s like going out into your garden and gardening. You have to constantly maintain it.”

To dispel misconceptions about their property and explain their reasons for opting for the tall grasses in place of a traditional lawn, the Joyces said they have decided to open their yard to the public and provide tours to anyone who is interested.

Their property has been at the center of a debate since last summer, when neighbors complained the 7-foot grasses violated the height limit in the county’s weed control ordinance and asked the county to force the Joyces to trim them.

Now, the grasses are growing back in and neighbors have renewed their protests, just as the Washington County Commissioners are considering potential revisions to the weed ordinance that could exempt projects such as the Joyces’ from height requirements.

Facing strong opinions on either side of the tall-grass debate, the commissioners decided at their June 23 meeting to hold a workshop to get additional feedback before deciding what course to take in regulating tall grasses in subdivisions.

The meadow grows

Deane Joyce, 40, a native of Australia, said the idea for the meadow grew out of his love of the Australian bush and his desire to create a similar atmosphere for his new home.

“It was a part of me looking to find security, really,” he said.

So the Joyces searched the country for land that would be appropriate for the project and decided on the Mondell Road property, a former cornfield about a mile north of Sharpsburg that had been fallow for about 10 years.

There were few other houses on the road when they moved in, Deane Joyce said.

The Joyces began preparing the land for the meadow before they moved in, but it took years to get the desired plants to grow properly because of the prevalence of thistles, Deane Joyce said.

After a first failed attempt, he sought help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which accepted him into its Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, a five-year program that would help him establish a grasslands habitat.

The USDA provided seeds and specific instructions, but after two years, the grasses still hadn’t taken hold, so they cleared the land and started over. Their third attempt succeeded.

Wandering through the field in a floppy wide-brimmed hat one afternoon in late June, Deane Joyce pointed out different grasses and flowers, stopping periodically to cut down thistles with a pair of clippers.

Clipping is only part of his strategy against the unwanted weeds, Deane Joyce said. He also relies on three types of beetles that eat different parts of the thistle plant. He pays $100 for 100 beetles and releases them into the meadow.

Deane Joyce said he has learned about many of the environmental benefits the meadow offers.

The roots on some of the grasses extend 10 feet into the ground and penetrate the clay that lies below. That allows rain to drain down through the clay to a limestone rock layer, which filters the water before it eventually reaches the Potomac River, Deane Joyce said.

He said he can taste a difference in his family’s well water because of the purification process facilitated by the roots.

If there is sulfuric acid in the rain, it dissolves the limestone and produces carbon dioxide, which follows the root back to the surface and is absorbed by the plant, making it grow more vigorously, Deane Joyce said. With more land, he said, that process could qualify for emission reduction credits, which can be sold to businesses seeking to offset their emissions of certain pollutants by paying for the reduction of those pollutants elsewhere.

‘Peaceful and harmonious’

Deane Joyce said the meadow has deep aesthetic value to him.

“I feel really close to God when I walk through it,” said Deane Joyce, who said he is a Mennonite. “It’s very peaceful and harmonious, and it gives me a sense of harmony in my life. I meditate on it.”

He said he recognizes that just as he gets comfort from his meadow, his neighbors derive comfort from maintaining their shorter lawns.

“I honestly believe that my neighbors, they love mowing,” he said. “That’s a source of recreation for them.”

The Joyces don’t expect to convert those who prefer short lawns, but they do hope the county will craft an ordinance that protects the freedom of those with other preferences, Jennifer Joyce said.

“That’s kind of the way we look at it,” she said. “Not that one way’s better than the other, but that it’s two different ways of looking after your property and what’s the best way for those two views to coexist.”

Neighbors say grassland project has caused them nothing but headaches

Sharpsburg-area resident Deane Joyce says the tall grasses and wildflowers on his property provide him with a sense of comfort, but neighbors along Mondell Road say his project has brought them nothing but headaches.

Patricia McNamee, whose neatly mowed lawn abuts the Joyces’ meadow without any fence or natural partition, pointed to small holes that covered the leaves of an ornamental bush planted near her back deck.

The holes, McNamee alleges, were munched by the beetles Joyce releases into his meadow to control thistles.

“They ate all my rose bushes,” she said. “My hibiscus was almost bald.”

The lack of weeds on the McNamees’ lawn and the meadow’s razor-straight edge are achieved only with the help of regular doses of weedkiller, she said.

Planting trees to separate their lots would cost thousands of dollars, McNamee said, adding she thought if trees were to be planted, Joyce should be the one to plant them.

Mondell Road resident Janet Wastler disputed Deane Joyce’s estimate that he spends three hours a day maintaining his meadow.

“We’ve been living by him the whole time and we don’t see him keeping it up,” she said. “He’s never out there.”

The neighbors’ other concerns, they said, include ticks, mosquitoes, skunks, stray cats and the fire hazard posed when the grasses dry out in the fall.

They called the meadow an “eyesore,” and recounted a story about one neighbor who had been asked by a houseguest if the property across the street was a vacant lot. Any yard that can be mistaken for an overgrown vacant lot is sure to lower property values, McNamee said.

If the meadow were confined to a small section of his yard, away from the property lines, it would be a different story, Wastler said.

Papers ... and more papers

Piles of paperwork and photos that were spread across McNamee’s counter documented the clash over the grasses.

They have copies of the covenant for their subdivision, Fair Acres, which states, “Lots shall be used for residential purposes only.”

They have the petition signed in July 2008 by 10 of the 13 Fair Acres property owners seeking to add a section to the covenant instituting an 8-inch height limit for grass, with an exception for grass used for grazing animals.

They have a petition signed by more than 330 Washington County property owners asking the Washington County Commissioners to prohibit nature studies or preserves in subdivisions and on properties smaller than five acres, require 20-yard buffers between nature preserves and residential properties and impose 18-inch height restrictions on nature preserve grasses.

And the neighbors have piles of papers documenting their correspondence with various officials in charge of state and federal nature study programs about Joyce’s membership status or eligibility.

In a letter to the commissioners in September 2008, Jones said Joyce had been “program shopping” for a program that would exempt him from the weed ordinance, and attached letters from officials with the Maryland Cooperative Extension, University of Maryland, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and other agencies stating they had no contract with Joyce.

Neighbors had a recent letter from Del. Christopher B. Shank, R-Washington, stating Joyce had a Maryland Seedsman License, which allows him to sell or donate seeds harvested from his property, but did not exempt him from any association regulations or county ordinances.

The work, McNamee said, has been exhausting. She said she is frustrated neighbors are left doing the research, which she said she thought was what taxpayers pay the commissioners, the county’s permit department staff and other officials to do.

“It’s depressing,” she said. “It really is.”

The following is a list of some of the plants in Deane and Jennifer Joyce’s meadow.

• Big bluestem — Perennial warm-season grass native to the United States. Distinguished by blue coloration at the base and purplish, three-parted flower clusters that resemble a turkey’s foot. The main roots can extend downward to 10 feet, making it useful to stabilize soil.

• Indiangrass — Native, perennial warm-season grass that was a major component of the tall grass vegetation that once dominated the prairies of the Central and Eastern United States. Grows 3 to 5 feet tall and bears a golden-brown plumelike seed head.

• Purple coneflower — Long-lived perennial herb that grows 1 to 3 feet tall and has a distinctive flower with reddish-purple petals and a cone at the center. Also called echinacea, it is a popular herbal remedy commonly used to treat the cold and the flu.

• Yarrow — Perennial herb that produces one to several stems from a fibrous underground horizontal rootstock. It has hairy leaves along the stem and dome-shaped flower heads with many whiteish to yellowish-white flowers.

• Black-eyed Susan — Biennial flowering plant about 3 feet tall with yellow ray flowers with dark brown spherical centers. It is Maryland’s state flower.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Plants Database

Meadow tours

To arrange a tour of the Joyces’ meadow at 5636 Mondell Road, call Deane and Jennifer Joyce at 301-432-4401.