Edgewater Park, N.J. ? Among the tidy, brick ranch-style homes with close-cropped lawns on Stevenson Avenue, one yard sticks out like, well, a green thumb.

Vicki Wozniak’s garden in this town near Philadelphia is designed to attract butterflies, hummingbirds and other winged critters. It is one-eighth of an acre almost totally covered by sunflowers, honeysuckle, azaleas and many other plantings.

But to local officials, her friendliness to wildlife looks like a nuisance. A municipal court trial is scheduled for Aug. 28.

In early July, Township Administrator Linda Doughterty told the Burlington County Times of Willingboro that she was afraid Wozniak’s yard was becoming a mosquito breeding ground and concerned that it didn’t look like other properties.

“It is the position of the township that we feel this is a health and safety issue,” she said.

Environmentalists see the message as a major barrier to a greener Garden State.

After she bought her house about seven years ago, Wozniak, an information technology specialist, began adding to the landscaping the same way she did in other places she had lived. She let the shrubs get so big they blocked out her front windows. She put in butterfly bushes and a small pond.

The trouble began in 2003, when the township property inspector started leaving yellow warning stickers on her door advising her that she needed to spruce things up.

“The rhododendron on the side couldn’t be tall, the climbing rose couldn’t climb, the pine needles needed to be picked up,” Wozniak said.

She says she kept doing what she was asked, but she kept getting notices – about 60 of them through 2005, she said.

Last year, she said, the township left her alone and her place was featured in a local garden tour. But this spring, the troubles began again. And in June, Wozniak received a court summons.

One notice said: “Your property has become (a) blight to your neighborhood, with its overgrown landscaping, bushes and weeds. … There is accumulated debris and is in an unsafe condition.”

Township officials didn’t return several calls from The Associated Press.

Wozniak is worried about the prospect of facing a $1,250 fine if she’s found guilty. That amount is about what she figures she spends each year on the yard.