Join the Bad Neighbor Club!

It must be spring in Connecticut.  My mail and the airwaves are full of offers from people who want me to start my spring yard work, with their help of course.

Walking on this grass will kill you

Apparently, the most expensive and therefore most desirable lawn grass won't grow by itself in our climate, so it needs some help:  

The ground must be spread with lime to change the acidity.  
It must be spread with fertilizer to feed the grass.  
It must be spread with herbicides to kill anything that isn't grass.  

What an exciting bunch of boring!

It must be spread with insecticides to kill any insects that might be lurking underground.

If I do this, and water my lawn daily, and feed it and lime it and spread more poisons at frequent intervals, I will be rewarded with an uninteresting carpet of green that needs to be mowed constantly.

I'm a BAD neighbor!

And, if I let a dandelion bloom, marring the perfect green blandness of my lawn, then I am a BAD neighbor!

What I wouldn't have:

Carpet of white and blue WEEDS!

Carpets of blue and white and yellow flowers from April until June.  
Butterflies (which don't live on grass).
Birds (no insects for them to eat).
Bunnies (no weeds for them to eat).
Foxes, bobcats, and hawks that come to feed on the birds and bunnies that I wouldn't have.
Time to sit on my porch, drinking lemonade and watching the birds and flowers and butterflies and bunnies and occasional fox.
Many dollars that I would have wasted on all this.

Bunnies eat weeds

My wife and I just finished our yard work for the spring:  we raked the winter's accumulation of leaves out of the gardens and moved it to the mulch pile.  That's it.  It took about 2 hours.  Now there is nothing to do until the end of May when the lawn is ready for its first occasional mowing of the summer.  Except, of course, sit on the porch and drink lemonade and listen to the birds.

How did I do it?  It wasn't hard, although it did take an initial investment of time and a little money.

Violets brought home from
an abandoned field

Turkeys like the wooded borders

First, I allow most of my property to remain shrubs and trees.  I have privacy, shade, and a host of wild animals to amuse me.

Next, I thought of plants that that would suit my wants for a small amount of open space.  My requirements were simple.  They must grow all by themselves in my climate, without human help. They must be low-growing so I won't have to mow often.  Self-sowing plants are good because I don't have to plant many of them.  They must have attractive flowers.  Lawn care people call these plants weeds.  

Slender speedwell in with the violets

The basic background of my lawn is whatever grass came with the house and was tough enough to survive neglect.  To that I added wild violets from waste areas, slender speedwell likewise, clover (I bought a few pounds of white clover seed, food for honeybees and a plant with root bacteria that pull nitrogen from the air and fertilize the lawn for me), and wild thyme (I bought a few plants at a farmers market and turned them loose).  Broad-leaved plantain came in by itself, and is food for rabbits and several species of butterfly.  

Speedwell flowers

And yes, dandelions, with bright yellow flowers from earliest spring to warm days in winter.

Years ago a friend pointed out that if a lawn is planted with crocuses and other bulbs, then it is not possible to mow said lawn until the bulbs have died back.  I found a provider of bulk flowering bulbs (I use Van Engelen Bulbs, who provide discount prices for quality bulbs.  I choose varieties that naturalize easily, spreading out over

A lawn full of bulbs

the years.)  Now my lawn is my garden, and mowing is impossible until the middle of May (it used to be the end of May, but climate change and so forth...)

At this point, the edges of my property are wooded, then there are wild flowering shrubs, and then a small amount of green, self-sustaining lawn that needs no help at all from me except for a half-hour of mowing once or twice a month.

Species tulips

Working with nature, instead of against her, means flowers, the nice smell of wild thyme, bunnies, butterflies, birds, $avings, and lots of free time!
From my porch, I can see my neighbor working on his lawn.  He fertilizes, limes, poisons, and mows and mows and mows.  And his lawn looks like hell.  There is nothing but grass

- and bare patches.  My lawn is thick and green all summer, with little help from me.



Here is the nice, soft, thick lawn that requires nothing more than an occasional mowing.  It attracts birds, bunnies, and butterflies.

Here is a lawn that receives hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours of sweat.  Who needs it?