This spring as you prepare your yard to be the envy of your neighbors, consider the animal and insect populations who also call your yard home.  In the United States, “turfgrass has replaced diverse native plant communities across the country in more than 40 million acres, an area the size of New England, and we are adding 500 square miles of lawn to the United States each year” (Tallamy, 2021). In replacing native plant communities with turfgrass, we are severely limiting the food and shelter native insects, birds and animals rely on to survive, thus destabilizing local food webs. By limiting food webs, we put pollinators at risk. “Pollinators are essential to life as we know it on planet Earth. In addition to pollinating a third of our crops, animals (bees, bats, hummingbirds, and others, but mostly bees) are responsible for pollinating 87 percent of all plants and 90 percent of all angiosperms (flowering plants). So if pollinators were to disappear, 87 to 90 percent of the plants on planet Earth would also disappear. Not only would such a loss be a fatal blow to humans, it would take most other multicellular species with it as well” (Tallamy, 2021).

Additionally, while turfgrass is the social norm due to its aesthetically pleasing and durable nature, it is relatively impervious, making it difficult for rainwater to infiltrate through. Thus, rainwater runs off lawns, picking up soil, road-based salts and pollution as it flows depositing these pollutants into surrounding waterways. Excess minerals and pollutants can lead to excessive algae growth, lower aquatic oxygen levels, fish kills and impaired waters.

What can you do to aid both pollinators and local waterways? Shrink your lawn! Doug Tallamy, local professor, and best-selling author suggests homeowners half their yard’s turfgrass. Easy ways to do this include planting groundcover or beneficial plants around existing trees, “connecting the dots” between existing plant beds with a larger continuous plant bed, hedging the edge of a property with native bushes, shrubs or trees or returning a corner of your lawn to the wild. In exchange for turfgrass, landscape with native plants and trees preferred by local pollinators such as native oaks and willows, perennial sunflowers, blueberry bushes, goldenrod, and asters. Additional native plants can be located by zip code on the National Wildlife Federation’s Native Plant Finder and the Audubon Society’s Plants for Birds. Many local nurseries now carry native plants and employees are happy to help you locate sources for ones you cannot readily find.

You can also make your remaining lawn more low maintenance and environmentally-friendly! Raise the blade height of your mower to 2.5-3” to allow the grass roots to penetrate farther into the soil and thus retain more water and shade out any weeds. Don’t bag up grass clippings, let them lay and feed nutrients back into the soil (wet clippings should be picked up) and add in clover for a sweet smelling, bee friendly, nitrogen fixing, always green turfgrass alternative!

For more information please check out: https://www.cuyahogaswcd.org/blog/2015/09/01/shrink-your-lawn, https://www.gardeners.com/how-to/smaller-lawns/5164.html and Doug Tallamy’s latest book, Nature’s Best Hope.