Intellectually we know that a brown lawn, or a lawn left to grow wild, is the environmentally responsible thing to do. But a part of us may look at wildness around a house and judge the owner. This is why sustainable lawns have not gained much traction in neighborhoods across the country. Good fences may make for good neighbors, but a nicely manicured property is probably more important.

In a lot of cases, ecology is not nearly as valued in our society as wealth, neatness and safety. A well manicured yard represents these values to many, while a wild and naturalized yard the opposite. How we maintain our yard says something, rightly or wrongly, about us. In order to make our properties ecologically healthy, society has to change, and of course that happens very slowly. We can facilitate this change through baby steps – there are ways to make our lawns more ecological sound and introduce the concept of environmentalism to our neighbors without causing alarm.

Let It Go Brown This is one aspect that is becoming more accepted as water bans during the summer become more frequent. Having the right types of grasses in your yard will help you go brown gracefully. If you have a lawn that has been over-watered for years, it can make sense to replant as years of too much water can lead to a proliferation of weak grasses. In the northern part of the country the lawn should be made up of fescue (my favorite), ryegrass and/or bluegrass. (Although bluegrass is the American ideal for yards and ball parks, I am not a fan as it requires a lot more water than the others.) These grasses will generally use less water, go dormant (turn brown, but not die) in the summer without water and come back when autumn returns. Another reason to regrass is that grass types are much better now than they were even twenty years ago. They have better color, better insect and disease resistance and better drought tolerance.

The amount of dormancy (brown) can be lessened by growing some roots. This means letting the plant grow up to three inches in the spring and fall because the plant needs a deep root system to support that much leaf tissue. You should then slowly reduce the amount of leaf tissue by bringing down the height of your mower to about two inches. The less surface area of leaf tissue there is, the less water is drawn from the soil through evapotranspiration. The other way to grow roots is to stretch out the irrigation cycle. Wait until the top quarter inch of soil has dried out and then water deeply. Drying out the soil triggers a physiological response in the plant to grow more root mass. Keeping it dry at the surface also keeps disease to a minimum.

Use Organic Fertilizers This is not only good for overall plant and soil health, it recycles a waste product. If your soil is bad or if you have a new yard, compost is a great option to improve health and structure.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Once you have healthy turf and the right kind of grass for your area, there still may be a need to treat for insects and weeds. Having a lawn torn up by grubs or taken over by crabgrass does not help convince your neighbor that a sustainable lawn is the way to go. We can reduce chemical in the long term use with Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

IPM requires you to get to know your lawn well. You have to learn and document where the crabgrass pops up every year and what parts of the yard get grubs. With this knowledge, only treat the parts of your yard that need it. By avoiding pest damage that can cause you to have to reseed the lawn, you are creating an increasingly stronger ecosystem that will require fewer treatments as it matures.

Install native flower beds. The more beds you have the less lawn you need. Native and wildflower beds do not require a good deal of watering and are food sources and cover for wildlife. Partnering up some perennials with some milk weed (monarch butterfly food source) or native grasses (not ornamental grasses) can achieve ecological goals while still providing the landscape with a manicured look. Choosing plant material for ecological reasons rather than for aesthetic reasons can make a big difference and still ensure a high quality lawn. There are ecological seed mixes or conservation mixes available for purchase, or better yet visit a meadow in the fall and collect seeds from the plants themselves.

Avoid Fungicide By doing these things you have created a very healthy plant that should never require a fungicide. Any fungal disease that hits a lawn is usually just cosmetic. When the weather changes, the turf should send up new growth to recover.

In the end, we see that a cared for landscape can have native materials and use less water. Formal edges to native beds, attractive mowing patterns even on a brown lawn, and splashes of color from common perennials all will conspire to give the healthy ecosystem the order and understandability that society demands from our suburban yards.

Additional reading:

For a good friendly overview of a healthy backyard, Audubon has a very good web page full of great ideas.

The United States Department of Agriculture website is a bit encyclopedic, but there is some good information on vegetation by state, plants for conservation projects, and invasive weeds (which should be identified and removed).

The best site by far for a back yard plant selection comes from the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin. You can choose your state, growing conditions, and general plant type and get a list of native plants.