Stafford County, VA Landscaping Rules: Weed Ordinances (2026)

Stafford's weed ordinance, in Chapter 24 Article II, sets different height ceilings depending on how a lot is used. Owners of vacant developed or undeveloped property, other than active farmland, must keep grass, weeds, and other foreign growth cut to six inches or less under § 24-17(a). Owners of occupied residential real property on lots smaller than half an acre get a taller allowance: twelve inches or less under § 24-18(a). Both sections also require owners to keep running bamboo, defined as aggressively spreading Phyllostachys-genus bamboo, contained at all times, and § 24-20 separately bars letting running bamboo grow without barriers or trenching or spread onto a right-of-way or neighboring land.

Before the county acts, the Director of Planning and Zoning must give the owner reasonable notice by first-class mail or personal delivery; if the owner is unknown or cannot be found, notice is skipped. If the owner still doesn't cut the growth, the director can have it cut and bill the owner, collecting the cost the same way as taxes. Enforcement escalates under § 24-19: a first civil penalty is $50, later violations not arising from the same set of facts can run up to $200 each within a twelve-month span, and total civil penalties from one continuing set of facts are capped at $3,000 in twelve months, with each business day the violation continues counting as a separate offense.

After three civil penalties for the same or similar violation within 24 months, any further violation becomes a Class 3 misdemeanor rather than a civil fine.