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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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