Time to Love My Lawn
I am not a lawn person. I’ve never cared a whit about having expanses of green. I grew up in the woods – I love trees and the only worth of a lawn is as a firebreak between the woodland edge and house. Needless to say, since I’ve moved into my home the lawn has been totally neglected. Now I did toss out some fescue seed at one point but really ignored it altogether. In the back of my head I’ve thought that I needed to do something about it but lawns are so uninteresting to me, they just go against my habitat gardener’s mind. The roommate likes Bermuda grass and the whole golf course look, which I flat refused to plant since I think Bermuda is nothing but short, sneaky English ivy. It’ll creep and get in everything and it never stops. Uggh. And lawns are work. If I enjoyed work I wouldn’t be a native gardener. Give me low maintenance any day. I want to garden when I want to garden, not because I have to. So to end the argument of what to do with the lawn, I did nothing.
Still, the yard looks like rat’s fanny and finally I’ve decided it’s time. After reading a post at Beautiful Wildlife Garden – The Wildlife-Friendly Eco-Lawn and over at clay and limestone – Clover I’m joining the ranks of clover based lawns. This is something I can handle and will actually help me to discover my inner lawn love – what could be better? Low maintenance, low water, looks pretty and attracts bees. So today I plan to stop at the feed store and see if they carry Dutch white clover seeds, and my property is full of tiny native violets, I’ll be moving some of those out into the lawn area…plans within plans. The roommate will be fine with it, he’s a critter lover and found the benefits of having life in the yard worth far more than the cookie cutter landscapes he knows. So it’s all good.
I may even finally like my lawn.
A rat’s fanny? LOL Glad you now have a plan that makes you happy for your lawn. The fritillaries will love those violets!
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I love the violets here. Not sure what they are but they are tiny, so I’m sure they will be perfect. Absolutely looks like rat’s fanny – down on it’s luck city rat fanny.
Well, the bees will certainly love you! Who knows, maybe your lawn will evolve into a meadow…
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Probably not a full meadow. In GA you do need to keep it short around a house, we have bugs the size of VWs. If I can figure out shorter wildflowers that I can seed en masse maybe. Clover and violets are early summer bloom and I’d like later season flowers as well to keep the bees happy. I may be asking you later! We’ll see how it goes! I’m excited though. I’m such a dork.
clover lawn is great! I plan on having it when I get a house with enough space. I really want to see it all flowering
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Hi there! I’m glad to hear from more people who don’t like the golf-course lawn. There’s so little in one for wildlife! I’m also really excited to hear you and others talking about planting things that are good for bees! I study native bees and they need all the help we can get. In some places, white clover is the only source of pollen and nectar for them during parts of the bloom season. So, even though it’s not native, it can still be great for wildlife!