Comment by nend | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nend | Hacker News Reader

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As a relatively new first time home buyer, I've found lawn care to be awful. Maintaining one actively harms the local ecosystem by removing native plants and replacing it with a monoculture, non-flowering, invasive, water intensive grass that isn't even allowed to grow to full height (in many cases).

I've started a plan to overtime dig up the yard and replace it with flower beds/gardens with native plants. The first bed I did this spring, and the native bushes I planted are now flowering. I've never seen a small garden attract so many pollinators: honey bees, bumble bees, pollinating flies, solitary wasps. It was really rewarding seeing all the different insects/species being supported by them.

Plus the bushes look great and require almost no maintenance for their care once planted (some weeding throughout the summer, and mulching every couple years probably).

Having 6.5 acres I just cannot avoid grass. The alternative to grass is labour. I already have too many gardens (half of my property is wooded tho so that's ok). But I have no interest in "lawns". I just "let" a lot of clover, creeping charlie, plantain etc grow. Or rather, I make no effort to maintain it other than mow. So I just try to be strategic about when I mow to avoid toad and bee death.

Have you thought about meadow mixes with native beneficial flowering plants [1]? There is some planning and expense to get it established, but once established your only maintenance is cutting it down once a year. In the long run it'll save you significant time.

[1] https://www.ernstseed.com/product-category/uplands-meadows/

I’ve looked into this myself and you should be careful planting “meadow mix.” Make sure the listed seeds are not invasive species. Otherwise you’ll potentially be introducing noxious weeds into your yard.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2002/04/18/wildflower-seed-m...

A meadow that is mowed once or twice a year can harbor a large variety of species and look really nice too. The problem are monoculture lawns, not grass.

In my climate (great lakes region) mowing only twice a year results in waste high plants full of ticks and sumacs growing up where I don't want them.

So I mow the front area and common areas about once every week and a half during peak growing season, and bush hog the back field about once every month and a half making an attempt to mow around things like milkweed and beneficial flowering plants.

If you don't mow for long enough, you'll end up with more woods. =)

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