CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: No Mow May in Haldon Creek Debate

Haldon Creek’s bylaw officers spend every spring issuing warnings to homeowners whose grass exceeds 20 centimetres. A motion before council would suspend that rule throughout May, leaving dandelions and clover to feed bees emerging from winter. The campaign, imported from Britain, has delighted gardeners and exasperated homeowners who regard it as a licence for neglect. Because boulevards and parks would likewise go unmown, the town would save approximately $40,000.

Councillor Anneke Visser, the motion’s sponsor, calls it an inexpensive experiment whose failure would be apparent by June. Measuring the benefit to pollinators over a single season, she acknowledges, is practically impossible. “Still, residents who abandon their mowers for a month frequently begin wondering what else their property might grow,” she maintains.

Dr. Luc Tremblay, an entomologist at the regional university, might be presumed an ally. Although he accepts that bees require additional habitat, he regards a May lawn as a feeble substitute: dandelions provide a limited diet, and many native species depend on indigenous plants flowering well into autumn. “A month of long grass makes people feel virtuous, and then the mower comes out on June 1,” he remarks. Permanent native plantings along the boulevards, he suggests, would make better use of that $40,000.

Carol Hutchings, a retired nurse whose bungalow backs onto Millrace Park, frames her opposition in practical terms. “Long grass shelters ticks, my grandchildren play in the yard, and a late first cut leaves heavy clumps that smother the turf.” Yet she tends a milkweed bed herself. Her grievance concerns careful neighbours paying for those who “simply can’t be bothered,” and the far corners of the parks, she allows, could stay as they are.

Landscaper Dev Ramgoolam openly expects to lose a month of contracts, although customers have lately been requesting wildflower beds in place of lawn, work considerably more lucrative than mowing. His objection concerns the blanket application of the rule. He adds, “Many elderly clients could never manage knee-high growth in June, and my own crews would hardly enjoy it.” Participation should be voluntary, he contends, with a small sign on each lawn; otherwise “nobody can tell a bee garden from an abandoned house.”

I have kept bees outside Haldon Creek for eleven years, and this quarrel frustrates me. Dr. Tremblay, I suspect, has identified the flaw that Councillor Visser glosses over: 6. Choose…dandelions are worse than nothingthe savings are too meagreno season can prove anythingone month can’t meet the need.

Ms. Hutchings deserves fairer treatment, too. Her detractors call her a bee-hater, but anyone who noticed 7. Choose…her worry about the tickswhat she tends herselfthe clumps from a late cutthe neighbours she defends would know better. Even so, the money question is where the entomologist wins me over: I would prefer the town’s savings 8. Choose…spent on permanent roadside plantingspaid to landscapers losing incomereturned as a tax creditused to sow more clover.

The most sensible idea, oddly enough, comes from the person 9. Choose…who tabled the motionwho studies insects for a livingwho grumbles about careless neighbourswith contracts at stake. Letting homeowners 10. Choose…choose their own monthpay a fee to opt outopt in and announce itplant wildflowers would reveal how much genuine interest exists, and nobody would wonder whether the house next door had been abandoned.