Gaithersburg, MD Landscaping Rules: Weed Ordinances (2026)

Section 12-5 of the City Code, part of Chapter 12, Health and Sanitation, is a single flat sentence: no person may permit or allow grass or weeds on land they own or occupy to grow higher than ten inches above the ground. The rule dates to the city's 1957 general ordinances and has not been renumbered since. Enforcement runs through the chapter's general nuisance-abatement procedure rather than a standalone grass-cutting citation scheme: under Section 12-8, once the city manager or a designee finds an overgrown lot, the office sends the owner or occupant a written notice specifying a reasonable time to cut it.

If the property owner does not comply within that window, Section 12-9 lets the city abate the condition itself, meaning a city crew or contractor mows the lot and bills the cost back to the person named in the notice; that city-performed cutting does not excuse the owner from separate prosecution for having let the grass exceed ten inches in the first place. The same chapter also reaches related conditions on the same lot, including accumulations of garbage or stagnant water under Section 12-2 and offensive odors or dense smoke under Section 12-3, so an overgrown, neglected yard is frequently cited alongside those provisions rather than in isolation.