Colfax approves natural lawn permit for Colfax Manor on University Avenue
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — Colfax Manor on University Avenue has received a natural lawn permit from the Village of Colfax for the area along Eighteen Mile Creek.
Letters to 25 property owners, located within 300 feet of the proposed natural lawn, were mailed out, said Lynn Niggemann, village administrator-clerk-treasurer, at the Colfax Village Board’s May 13 meeting.
According to the village’s ordinance, 51 percent of the landowners would have to object to the application for a natural lawn permit in order for the permit not to be granted, she said.
No one came forward, except for one person who spoke up after the deadline for making an objection, Niggemann said.
Report
Last year, the village had asked Mark Mosey, retired biology teacher from Colfax High School, to identify obnoxious weeds and invasive plant species in the area that Northwest LLC had wanted to keep as a natural lawn.
Mosey submitted a report listing the forbes (flowering plants), grasses and woody plants (trees and shrubs) that were growing and noted that two invasive species, buckthorn and honeysuckle, were growing in the natural lawn area.
The flowering plants growing in the natural lawn area included common dandelion, yarrow, hoary alyssum, common cinquefoil, wild strawberry, orange hawkweed, silvery cinquefoil, sheep sorrel, common mullein, spotted jewelweed, curly dock, wild bergamot, violet and early meadow rue.
The grasses included nutsedge, quack grass, June grass, bluegrass and Indian grass.
The woody plants included, besides buckthorn and honeysuckle, Siberian elm, quaking aspen, black cherry, black walnut, red raspberry and boxelder.
Mosey’s report noted that those were the plants growing as of May 13, 2023, and that additional species would appear as the growing season continued into summer and fall.
The Colfax Village Board denied a permit for a natural lawn to Northwest LLC at the May 22, 2023, meeting.
Noxious weeds
The village’s noxious weed list does not include buckthorn or honeysuckle, although both are identified by the state Department of Natural Resources as invasive species.
There are two species of honeysuckle that grow in Wisconsin.
Fly honeysuckle, which is native to Wisconsin, is listed as an endangered plant.
Bush honeysuckle is invasive in Wisconsin and produces white, pink or red flowers that have five stamens.
The village’s noxious weed list also includes curly dock, which is native to Europe and Western Asia and is toxic to horses, cattle and sheep, and the seeds are poisonous to poultry.
Mosey found curly dock growing in the natural lawn.
The village’s noxious weed list includes dandelion over eight inches in height as well, and dandelions were listed on the flowering plant list of what was growing in the natural lawn area.
Milkweed
Milkweed over eight inches in height is included on the noxious weed list, too, in the ordinance available on the village’s website for natural lawns in Chapter 8.
In July of 2015, however, the Colfax Village Board approved updating the noxious weed ordinance to remove milkweed from the ordinance. Milkweed is essential to the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, and monarch butterfly populations are declining because milkweed is disappearing from the landscape.
The updated ordinance 2015-06 that removes milkweed from the noxious weed list is included at the bottom of the village’s ordinances under the section of ordinances adopted in 2015.
Noxious weed removal
Based on the information from Mosey’s report to the village, Northwest LLC hired 4Control Inc., a vegetation management and noxious weed removal company, to treat and confirm complete removal of all of the listed weeds from the property, according to an e-mail message dated January 28, 2024, from Nick Drury of Northwest LLC.
The nuisance weeds have been abated from the property, Niggemann told the village board at the May 13 meeting.
According to the village ordinance, if a property is in a floodplain, the nuisance weed ordinance does not have to be followed, and part of the property owned by Northwest LLC right along Eighteen Mile Creek is in the floodplain, Niggemann said.
According to the ordinance, Northwest LLC also will have to keep a 10-foot strip mowed between the natural lawn and adjacent properties.
The Colfax Village Board unanimously approved the natural lawn permit for Northwest LLC.
The permit expires May 1, 2026.