April 15, 2021, Are lawns bad?

Hi gardeners

Spring flower collage 

Here I am sitting here writing, listening to the wind roar outside.  I should be doing spring housecleaning- or cleaning out my mom’s house we are going to sell, instead my next chore planned is to pot up some dahlia tubers that are beginning to shrivel. This time of year, gardening takes preference over most other things.

I was outside this week during one of the rare sunny days watching the bees swarming the row of crocus by the deck. There were literally hundreds of honeybees there for a few days, must be a hive nearby. Some native bees were among them. I have a thick bed of various crocus about 8 feet long by my deck. There were some iris reticulata and Glory of the Snow nearby in bloom too.

I would have hyacinths in bloom soon, but the deer surprised me this year by deciding that hyacinths are not that bad after all. I have never had deer eat my hyacinths before.  It just goes to show that "deer resistant" is not a thing you can count on.

It occurred to me that these pollinators would be having a tough time if my nonnative, blooming plants were not here for them. There are some trees blooming, but the ones blooming now don’t do much for bees, as they are wind pollinated. Even dandelions aren’t blooming very well yet, they aren’t native but may as well be.

I also saw several butterflies this week, which surprised me. They were not on the crocus, just flying by. A few species of butterflies overwinter as adults and emerge when temps are above 60 degrees. Some butterflies sip tree sap this time of year, but others are looking for early blooming flowers. Here in Michigan’s thumb few native plants are blooming now.  Skunk cabbage in swampy areas, pussy willows, witch hazel, and maples, are some I know of.

Climate change has disrupted the coordination of when insects emerge and when food is available for them. That’s why it’s important to use nonnative plants in the garden as well as native ones. Spring flowering bulbs and hellebores, forsythia, and pansies, are a few early bloomers that can keep early emerging pollinators alive.

As climate change alters the environment, having plants that are suitable for the environment, regardless of where they originate from, is going to become more and more important. Please don’t assume that the only good plants for your garden are native ones.

Glory of the Snow

Gardeners in zones 6 and lower- it’s still time to use patience. It’s a rare April that we don’t have snow and freezing temps a few times in Michigan. It looks like this year is running about a week behind recent years as far as bloom times go. Be very cautious planting outside. Dormant trees, shrubs, and perennials can be planted. Pansies and violas can be planted.  You can sow leaf lettuce, peas, kale, radish, and onion sets in the ground if the ground isn’t too wet. Grass seed can be sown.

I would hold off planting most perennials that are already leafed out, annuals, all those pretty hanging baskets should be inside still and don’t move any houseplants outside yet. In two weeks, things should be a bit safer in zones 5-6, and by the end of May most things can be planted outside.

Don’t prune dead areas off plants like roses too soon either. The dead areas protect living tissue beyond them. When the plants have tiny leaves on surviving areas you can carefully remove all dead stems. And when you are removing stems from last years plants mark the location of slow to emerge plants like hardy hibiscus and buddleia, so you won’t damage or plant over them.

I have not seen any hummingbirds yet – usually they come back in this area around the end of April. But I’m cleaning my feeders and getting them ready.  Orioles usually come back around the same time.

iris reticulata

Let’s talk about lawns

Lawns are once again a hot topic here in the US with many people calling for their elimination. The Kentucky blue grass, heavily fertilized, irrigated and sprayed for insects, lawn is certainly not the best use of land. Do we have too much land devoted to lawn in the US? Maybe. But before you dig up the lawn and plant “native species” or just stop mowing, you need to consider many things.

A lawn has many definitions. You don’t have to have a plush carpet of bluegrass, you can let ground ivy, clover, violets, dandelions and other short weeds mix into the grass. But do keep your lawn mowed to 3 - 3 ½ inches high. This height allows many “weeds” to bloom and provide food for pollinators yet doesn’t look messy. You could call this a natural lawn. In this article, that’s the lawn I am talking about. It’s the type of lawn many of us have anyway.

Three to 3½ inches is a good height for most grasses too. It keeps them healthy because they have enough leaf surface to produce food. When you let grass get longer and then mow it, it goes into shock for a few days as this eliminates most of the green, food producing part of the plant at the end of the grass blade.

Good reasons for lawns

Keeping an area mowed around your home and important outbuildings does several things. Mowed areas create a fire break, and if you are in a wildfire prone area you may even want to irrigate that mowed area to keep it green. Experts suggest a minimum of 50 feet of mowed area around homes if wildfires frequent your area.

Mowed areas help keep ticks and mosquitoes at bay. Ticks are brought into unmowed areas by animals like rabbits, mice, and deer. They climb on those long strands of weeds and grass and wait to hop on you. Once they get into your “native species” or wild area you are going to have a hard time eliminating them.  Adult mosquitoes rest in tall vegetation during the day.

Mowed areas help eliminate hiding places for rats and mice (and the snakes that hunt them, if you dislike snakes). Public health officials are correct when they state that unmowed areas around homes often create a rat problem. You may be fine with rats, but rats travel long distances for food and water and your neighbors probably don’t want them around.

Mowed areas create spaces for entertaining and playing. If you have kids and pets, you want them to have a safe place to play near your home. You want to be able to see what’s growing there to avoid poison ivy and other poisonous plants popping up. Burs and other sticky seeds are unpleasant to remove from kids’ clothes and your pet’s fur and can even have health consequences.

Just stopping mowing or trying to start a wildflower meadow or “native habitat” around your home often doesn’t end well. You may get a ticket since many places have laws about controlling vegetation around dwellings. And quite frankly, most of these experiments make your home look like it has been abandoned, to put it kindly.

It doesn’t mean you can’t use the front yard for gardens if your municipality allows it. You can plant native plants if that is your thing. Just keep it neat and tidy, put the plants in “beds” and have paths and defined borders. Your backyard and other areas can be more informal, but a mowed area close to the back of the home is a wise plan too.

What will be tolerated depends on the area. In densely populated areas if it looks “weedy” and unkempt officials/neighbors aren’t going to care if you call it native habitat. But with a little planning, careful tending, and some mowed areas you can have those patches of native plants and no one will notice.

Be a good neighbor and keep truly noxious weeds like ragweed and stinging nettles cut down. Their pollen tortures the neighbors, and those plants are not beneficial to pollinators. Don’t plant aggressively spreading plants, native or not, close to lot lines.

Remember that many nonnative plants are attractive, suit your conditions and can also be beneficial to pollinators and wildlife. Including them in gardens often makes the garden more pleasing and familiar to neighbors and makes them less likely to complain about the landscaping.

Mowed areas are called edge habitat, when surrounded by trees and shrubs and taller vegetation. Rabbits, frogs and toads, and even deer like to spend some of their time in areas with short vegetation. Many species of birds that are found in urban and suburban environments prefer areas with mowed lawns. Mown areas help them spot predators and find insects on the ground.

Robins, song sparrows, chipping sparrows, killdeer, juncos, brown thrashers, gray catbirds, flickers, grackles, indigo buntings, bluebirds, cardinals, meadowlarks and red-tailed hawks are just some of the bird species that like edge habitat, with short vegetation. Even butterflies seem to prefer plants at the edges of mowed areas.

If you have lots of property, it’s fine to stop mowing or encourage native plants in areas more distant from your home. No one needs more than an acre of mowed area (unless you are really concerned about fire).  

It’s what you do to your lawn that matters

You don’t need to fertilize or weed the lawn. Let birds eat the grubs and other insects. There’s no need for pesticides unless you do get a severe insect problem, such as fire ants. Don’t rake clippings, mulch them back into the lawn. Mowing will take care of most tall weeds.

Don’t water large areas of lawn. You may want to water 50-75 feet around your home, enough to keep things green, if you live in a wildfire prone area. Or you may want to keep an area green that you use for entertaining or as a playground. Otherwise let your lawn go dormant in dry weather, except for “mercy” watering if there is an exceptionally long drought.

I hear a lot about the folly of American lawns, but mowed areas are better than paved areas, and even a monoculture of nonnative bluegrass is better than pavement. It absorbs carbon and water and cools the area. Lawns are not just vanity or a waste, there are practical purposes for keeping mowed areas around homes.

It’s not the mowed area that’s the problem, it’s how we care for that mowed area. If we get away from the “perfect” lawn concept and allow lawns to consist of a variety of plant species that are kept mowed, then there is nothing wrong with those lawns and you should not feel bad for having one.

 

Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. – Allan Armitage

 

Kim Willis

 

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