Story Archive

Misuse of Nomenclature, Home and Garden Division

A housing project in Quincy, Mass., is listed on the Quincy Housing Authority’s website as “garden apartments,” and several of the residents made good on that description. “This is my therapy. I plant flowers,” said resident Rose Cameron, 65. She had just spent $100 putting in new flowers after receiving permission from the housing authority. But then residents received an “urgent notice” in their mailboxes. “Do not plant a garden,” the notice said. “If you started a garden STOP!” Garden fencing, lawn ornaments, and fake flowers were also banned. Flower pots are allowed on balconies — something the development’s one-floor units lack. “We can’t live like normal people, in other words?” asked Robin Shuman, 56. “How would they at Housing like for us to tell them they can’t do that at their homes?” Cameron agreed. “I’d love to know what their homes look like,” she said. “I bet you they have flowers.” (MS/Boston Herald) ...Or they might be growing — and smoking — something a little more “weedy.”