Tulsa Mayor Saves Woman’s Wildflowers

Evelyn Connors’ paradise on earth is safe from city lawn mowers.

The city had threatened to cut the 50-foot-long strip of waist-high wildflowers that the 82-year-old woman has tended for 27 years, citing codes that say plants in uncultivated gardens can be no higher than one foot.

Mayor Susan Savage and a public works official toured the wildflower garden and decided that only a pink dogwood tree needed trimming among Connors’ patches of buttercups, Jacob’s ladders, blue larkspurs and purple yarrow.

“The wildflowers will remain intact. They’re not a problem,” Savage said Friday.

Connors said she was satisfied with the compromise.

“They can go ahead and do that, but they better not touch the wildflowers,” she said. “They can trim a little, but I’ll hit them over the head if they get reckless.”