Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Lauren Ritchie

Published October 20, 2010

In the midst of a sterile Tavares community of retirees in mobile homes, Mo O'Connor has created a pocket oasis.

Stroll down her short driveway and into a shady repose where vines twine up a laurel oak, a stand of mother-in-law's tongue grows proudly in a shaft of sunlight and ferns line cool pathways of pine needles.

O'Connor, 64, and her neighbor Joy Powell eat ice cream and cackle to themselves during the hot days of summer as they sit in the shade and watch the birds twitter through the tiny sanctuary tucked to the side of O'Connor's mobile home.

The " Florida friendly" yard — O'Connor never waters the lush greenery — is peaceful, inviting, quiet.

That's over. Enter the Lake Frances Estates Homeowners Association. A state law specifically protects residents who choose "Florida friendly" landscaping from overzealous homeowners associations that tend to prefer perfectly manicured and tightly trimmed bushes around obedient trees. But the law, sponsored by Lake's own state Sen. Carey Baker, R- Eustis, hasn't stopped this particular association. Neighbors started by complaining about the "jungle" look of O'Connor's little lot, which is about 60 feet wide, to Tavares code-enforcement officers. 'In the hands of the lawyers' They didn't get the answers they wanted, so they turned to the association.

Mo O'Connor's "Florida-friendly" yard in Tavares has led to harassment from neighbors.

The result is that O'Connor has been regularly harassed for the last 14 months by letters from the association's lawyer, snippy little references in the community's newsletter and petty acts of spitefulness perpetrated by someone who clearly has too much time on his or her hands.

The latter involves food scraps being dumped almost nightly on her lawn. Monday's offering, for example, was lima beans and biscuit pieces. Told of that bit of childish behavior, association officials just snickered during what was supposed to be a mediation, O'Connor said. She wasn't allowed to bring anyone with her, and it turned out that the association's lawyer was the "mediator." That sounds more like a browbeating than a mediation.

One neighbor of O'Connor's at first agreed to talk about why he has complained about her yard. Then, both he and the association's vice president said they didn't want their names in the newspaper. They kept saying the dispute was "in the hands of lawyers." Good grief. This isn't Roe vs. Wade where everybody's got to lawyer up for the Great Supreme Court Battle. It's a simple neighborhood disagreement.

The dispute is actually in the hands of only one lawyer, Christopher Shipley, who represents the association. He's been firing off threatening letters to O'Connor since June 23, 2009. The deed restrictions call for an owner in Lake Frances Estates to keep landscape "free of weeds and underbrush, and trees on the property shall be maintained to prevent or eliminate unsightly growth." That's the sum total of what it says in regard to landscaping.

Snake, rat 'invasion'

But the state law pushed by Baker is more specific. It says, "A deed restriction or covenant may not prohibit or be enforced so as to prohibit any property owner from implementing Florida-friendly landscaping on his or her land."

Shipley insisted that residents who have complained don't dislike the "Florida friendly" aspect of O'Connor's yard. However, they say that needles from her big pine in the front yard, which she uses as mulch, attracts snakes and rats who breed there. They also say she doesn't sufficiently maintain her landscaping.

And — this is the worst! — some of her vines are growing over the back fence onto her neighbor's side! STOP THE PRESS!

Or, just get out a pair of snips.

Asked how many snakes or rats have overrun Lake Frances Estates, Shipley said he didn't have a count and didn't think the neighbors had "quantified" this massive invasion. O'Connor said she has seen three snakes in six years.

O'Connor also has records showing that she maintains the landscaping, which is designed to mimic natural growth in Florida with its English ivy, blue daze groundcover, elephant ear, plumbago bushes, coontie palms, sea grapes, bromeliads and spider lilies — all approved by the University of Florida as part of the list of plants that qualify as part of its Florida Friendly Landscaping Program.

O'Connor, a retired office manager who still works two days a week looking after an elderly lady, acknowledged that some of her plants died during last year's severe winter, but those brown spots in her sea of greenery are long gone now.

"We don't care if she wants to plant her whole yard full of weeds, as long as she takes care of it,' Shipley said. "We've tried to tell her that her landscaping may save on water, but it does require more pruning and maintenance."

'Preserving' Florida

Oh, wrong again.

"It requires less maintenance and less pruning," said Charles Fedunak, the University of Florida's environmental horticulturalist in Lake County.

O'Connor's landscaper shook his head over the controversy.

"People pay me top dollar to do this, and some of them end up looking like they live in the middle of the woods," said Mike Africano, owner of Always A Cut Above lawn service and landscaping company of Eustis.

O'Connor's design is "mild" by comparison, he said. He estimated that he could re-create her landscaping for $15,000 to $20,000.

This situation is simple, and it isn't about maintenance or snakes. Some of the folks — definitely not all — who live in Lake Frances Estates don't like O'Connor's little wilderness — it's different from their primly trimmed lawns — and they've decided to make her life miserable until she conforms.

The funny thing is that it hasn't worked.

Somehow, she cheerfully focuses on the evolution of the little refuge she's been creating during the six years since she bought the 1979 mobile home. She patiently keeps track of the nastygrams from the lawyer and of her maintenance activities as she tries out different plants and shrubs.

"I put in $200 worth of fall orchids — they got too much sun, and it didn't work out," she said ruefully.

A neighbor who likes the vegetation and appreciates the fact that she's not using the dwindling natural resource of water kindly mows a little square of St. Augustine grass in front of her home.

"But I love doing the weeding and being in the yard," O'Connor said. "I believe in preserving as much of Florida as possible."