Knox County, TN Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

Section 902 of Chapter 9, inserted by the county's 2018 IPMC amendments in Sec. 10-92, defines 'Natural Landscaped Area,' also called native gardening, as the use of native plants, including trees, shrubs, ground cover and grasses indigenous to the garden's geographic area, whether naturally established or deliberately designed and cultivated, that once established will sustain itself with minimal maintenance and does not contain noxious weeds or poisonous plants causing a public nuisance. That definition matters because Section 904's Prohibited Acts ban letting 'any plant that is not cultivated' grow in rank profusion within ten feet of the property line to a height over twelve inches, and separately ban any vegetation accumulation that creates a nuisance under Section 901's Declaration of Nuisance.

A native garden that meets the Section 902 definition, being either naturally established as native habitat or intentionally designed and cultivated, and free of noxious or poisonous nuisance species, falls outside the 'not cultivated' and 'rank profusion' language the prohibited-acts section targets, distinguishing it from an abandoned lot simply growing wild. The chapter defines a third term in the same section, 'Subdivided Vacant Lots,' as any lot cleared and graded for future construction within a subdivision, which carries its own separate mowing duty under Section 903 regardless of any native landscaping present.