BURLINGTON — Is Burlington sending out mixed marigold messages? Last month, the city’s Center for Community and Neighborhoods presented a beautification award to Holly Taylor, who’s been planting a variety of flowers, including sunflowers, in an Old North End greenbelt for four years. Meanwhile, the Burlington City Council is considering a proposal by the Parks and Recreation Department to restrict planting on city greenbelts. The move is motivated in part by complaints from drivers and pedestrians who say they can’t see around the sunflowers. If the ordinance passes, this year’s winner could be next year’s scofflaw. Action is expected at the June 27 City Council meeting.

This article appears in Jun 22-28, 2005.

Staff Writer Ken Picard is a senior staff writer at Seven Days. A Long Island, N.Y., native who moved to Vermont from Missoula, Mont., he was hired in 2002 as Seven Days’ first staff writer, to help create a news department. Ken has since won numerous regional and national awards for his features, profiles and investigative stories and had his work picked up by international news outlets. He was the first journalist to shine a light on the thousands of undocumented workers in Vermont’s dairy...