And it takes a lot less water, work, money, and time that way. And it's healthier.

The uniform green carpet in the yard isn't a real goal of mine, either.

in a monoculture. And we've continued the philosophy. So we don't call it a mixed-weeds lawn, but I guess that's what ours is, too. We just water it and keep it cut, whatever it is.

There are more than 300 species of native bees in Minnesota and we need all of them. People are killing the pollinators with all the crap they dump on their lawns to make them look like golf courses. Fortunately the word is getting around, at least to some extent, that if you kill all the "weeds" you'll kill the bees and butterflies. And getting rid of clover, which you always used to see in lawns, means getting rid of a nitrogen-fixing legume. My own yard has no turf grass at all - I got rid of it a few years ago, and replaced it with mostly native shrubs and perennials. I've planted lots of monarda (bee balm) and milkweed, among other things. Some of the flowers are "weeds" that I didn't plant, like Virginia waterleaf, which I don't kill because the bees (and I) like the purple flowers.

Of course, my next door neighbors hate my yard, and since I removed the grass I've been accused of harboring weeds and wild animals and "not taking care of my property." They prefer the golf course look, and have carefully killed everything that isn't perfect green fescue or bluegrass. Fortunately it's a small city lot so they can't dump too much poison into the soil. I wish they'd move to some gated community out in Eden Prairie or some such place with the other entitled yuppies and over-fertilize somewhere else.

It's interesting to watch for some of those little native bees. I especially like the shiny green ones. And enjoy your clovery, weedy lawn; I do believe this is the new wave.

Cool! I'll watch more closely for them. We have a couple of resident toads, too. I encounter them from time to time near the fence at the back of the yard, usually near one of the lilac bushes. I picked one up the other day to show to the 3-year old girl who lives next door. She was fascinated, and I let her hold it on her hand for a bit. Then, I put it back right where I found it. There are bunnies, too, living behind my garage, and we see them grazing on our lawn weeds. It's all good.

it probably just needs some water. So - if you put a teaspoon full of water beside the bee it will drink some and then flyway.

True !

You never say. I'm not even sure why you would want bees, unless you're sure you've only got the non-stinging kind hanging around.

Bees are necessary to pollinate just about everything. If you have apple trees, for example, you need bees because apples don't self-pollinate. Without bees most of our food crops wouldn't be pollinated, either. Most of the hundreds of species of native bees are the small, non-stinging kind we barely even notice; they live in holes in the ground or hollow brush, and don't swarm like honey bees, which are not native to the U.S. These are the bees we are thoughtlessly poisoning in an attempt to have the perfect green lawn (which is also wasteful of resources because turf grass doesn't give anything back to the environment).

I wasn't asking the general question, "Why does society need commercial pollinators?" but rather the specific question of "Why does the OP need bees?"

I'm all for native bees but where I'm from (the fairly densely populated north-east), there isn't a lot of species variety in neighborhoods and areas where people talk about their lawns. Cities and suburbs simply aren't natural environments and nothing will change that.

I need wild bees to pollinate my apple trees, since there aren't a lot of commercial apiaries here in central Minneapolis. It's possible to take up beekeeping in the city but you need a permit and the consent of your neighbors, so there's not much of that going around in neighborhoods like this (and the lots are fairly small). As a result you don't often see honeybees in the city, and if you want anything pollinated - even your little vegetable garden - you have to rely on the native species. Fortunately, there is also a movement afoot, at least around here, to go "natural." I am not by any means the only person in this neighborhood who has eliminated some or all of their turf grass in favor of things that flower and attract bees and butterflies. Not having a golf-course lawn seems to have become a thing, and I'm very happy about that.

There's a hive on the White House grounds. There's been urban bee keeping since there's been urban and keepers.

With the exception of wind pollinated plants, because of their cross pollinating, bee increase the health and productivity of flowering plants by a factor, up to 40% in some cases. If there's a garden, both the bees and the plants benefit and in turn so do we.

damage to ourselves and our food crops by poisoning the bees. My favorites are the big bumblebees we see all the time in our yard. While they could sting, I've never known one to sting a person who didn't handle it roughly. Watching them go about their beely business is entertaining, too.

No bee or insect is essential to your yard because your yard is not used for growing food nor is it a nature preserve. Everything there is there because you enjoy it or would not enjoy changing it. If you like the company of bumblebees, then I suppose that's the answer I was looking for.

pits where all the soil washes away after torrential acid-filled rain storms. Once down to dust and clay layers we can all stay inside!
Bees only belong to huge Multinational Mega-Corporations who need pollinators to help in their secret "natural" food extrusion processes!

large mulberry trees. I'm also planting raspberries on my back fence. All must be pollinated. But, bees don't just stay in my yard. Bees fly, so they go wherever they want to go. My neighbors, too, have fruit trees and gardens. So, they actually are used for growing food. My yard is also not a nature preserve, but I actively feed wild birds, from hummingbirds to wild turkeys that manage to show up in my yard. We even have a pair of mallards that visits the ground under our feeder. The same pair has been coming here for 10 years, now. I recognize the male by a unique pattern on his tail. The turkeys are only occasional guests, but we've had a huge variety of birds in our yard, including a gorgeous pileated woodpecker that shows up in Spring and Fall to visit our suet feeder. So, no, we're not a nature preserve, in any official way, but we help the birds survive in tough times, too.

Maintaining a healthy population of both native and domestic bees is important. It's that simple. I also see honeybees in my yard, particularly on the clover. Now, I'm not sure where their hive is, but there's a good chance that someone in the area keeps bees. I have zero interest in poisoning that person's bees or any other bees.

I'm 68 years old. In my entire life, I've been stung by a bee maybe six times, and I spend a lot of time outdoors. Since I'm not allergic to bee stings, they're a minor annoyance, really, and stings are rare.

Why would I not provide blooms for the bees? That's the real question. I have no desire to kill them, so I might as well give them a place where they can visit flowers of interest to them. I also planted milkweed in the waste space behind my garage, and let some thistles grow there, too. Why not? The butterflies and moths visit them, including monarch butterflies, which are having a hard time these days, too.

My question is: Why would people poison those creatures? That just doesn't make any sense at all.

I'm very envious of your birdie visitors! Wild turkeys … that is awesomely cool.

Which part of the country are you in? (State, zone) Just curious to imagine what it's like.

Wild Turkeys have become very common in the city here. You encounter them all over the place and they tend to feed under bird feeders in people's front yards. During the spring and summer, we have a huge variety of wild birds, either nesting here or during migrations, and I have about six feeders in the yard, including hummingbird and oriole feeders. I don't put up bluebird nest boxes, because they seem to like more open areas than suburban-style yards. We do have all sorts of birds nesting in the neighborhood, though. Three types of squirrels, including white and black varieties of the common gray squirrel, red squirrels, and even some flying squirrels if you bother to check the bird feeders at night.

I even have a few short-tailed shrews who are raising families in my yard. One lives under my front porch, and I see it scurry along the house wall from time to time. Fearless, it will let me walk right up to it and crouch down to study it. We have raccoons, opossums, foxes, and deer right in our residential neighborhood from time to time, along with bunnies and groundhogs.

Anyone in this area who puts up bird feeders will see a wide variety of birds, depending on what they put in it. All of this within the city limits of St. Paul. People who live farther away from town see even more critters. A black bear was seen just a mile from my home last year.

Minnesota's a fun place to live.

If you want to know more about the natural history of that area an interesting book is "A Love Affair with Birds: The Life of Thomas Sadler Roberts" by Sue Leaf. (http://www.amazon.com/Love-Affair-Birds-Thomas-Roberts/dp/0816675643/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402189151&sr=8-1&keywords=a+love+affair+with+birds)

Thomas Roberts, my husband's great grandfather, was a teenager when his family moved to Minneapolis while it was still new. He became a student of nature and especially of birds and remained so his entire life. Even while he became a doctor and had a thriving practice, he was an avid bird watcher who shared his enjoyment with other people.

In his later years while writing "The Birds of Minnesota" ha realized how much the environment of his state had changed and became an advocate for conservation.

The book gives a very clear picture of how the wildlife of Minnesota and the Minneapolis area changed in just one lifetime. Though it is primarily a biography of Dr. Roberts, the book could not have covered his life without talking about the wildlife observations he made over the years.

need the earth?"

Got it.

Arugula, fava beans, fruit trees, radish, lambs quarters, clover, cabbage family, mint and other herbs, amaranth, garlic; all of these reseed. Then I have a few vegetables. I need pollinators.
Oh yeah, chard everywhere too.

* James Watt was Reagan's Secretary of the Interior who hated biodiversity and tried to get animals taken off the endangered species list since they weren't needed. According to him, we didn't need endangered birds since we had chickens and pigeons. He also wanted the environment to be completely developed since he believed that: After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

** I don't really think that is Watt, but the sentiments are the same.

Your suburban lawn is not and will never be nature. It is completely intentional and exists the way it does for your pleasure. It is no more indicative of biodiversity than your local zoo.

I don't know what else to say other than you've literally imagined an entire ideology for me that is completely unsupported by the statements I've made.

our lawns/yards are not nature? what do you actually think the ecosystem is? everything is part of it--the forests, the oceans, the mountains, yards, EVERYTHING. try reading up on the "gaia hypothesis" for some understanding of the fact that we are all part of a single whole.

All nature! No, of course not. Managed human environments like cities and suburbs are not nature. Suburban yards, yes even unmaintained ones, are just as artificial as the roads in front of them. This isn't some crazy notion that exists solely in my head and it's, to put it charitably, not a right-wing idea. Frankly I'm surprised that somebody that would advocate for the gaia hypothesis would have never encountered this idea before now.

To bring this back to my original question to the OP, no, it's not crazy to ask why somebody would need bees in their unmaintained artificial suburban yard. There are, after all, many reasons people might need bees and few ways to characterize that need in such a way that preserves the "unmaintained" quality of the artificial suburban yard. I was curious about the OP's yard and his intentions for it and he thoroughly answered them in two posts.

a nature preserve? I'm thinking that you probably don't. We're all trying to add something to the environment that helps.

It's not like I'm saying "Oh I live in real nature you guys are just poseurs", so I'm not sure why that's relevant.

I do occasionally see deer, turkeys, and other forest creatures around town but this doesn't blind me to the fact that I live in an artificial environment, where "biodiversity" refers to "whatever creatures live off human debris the best".

animal life. And why not? For myself, I'm looking for ways to improve my offerings by planting things that make life easier for the wildlife around me. The birds and animals in the city are living things, too. I don't think the pileated woodpecker enjoying my block of suet is much different from the one in the north woods. He or she is just passing through the area. I offered a lunch stop for it.

We have a woodland perimeter close by, but dang. If there is a stump in the neighborhood that ol' pileated woodpecker will show up and tear hell out of it looking for insects.

raccoons, possums, chipmunks, squirrels, flying squirrels, bats, deer, foxes, frogs, and turtles that I can see in my yard on weekly basis sure think it is nature. I live in heavily wooded suburbs with 30 miles of bike paths and nature trails. My backyard has a blackberry patch and two oak trees that are about 80 feet tall. After that, it is woods.

I assume Democrats and progressives to be at least more or less sensitive to ecology and environmental issues. I cannot fathom the mindset that can say: "Why do you need bees?" I recommend learning something about the importance of biodiversity.

So your suburban home abuts nature, consider yourself lucky. If your yard wasn't there there would be another acre of nature next to those woods. Maybe you can't fathom why I'd ask a person why they need bees. I can't fathom why a person plants flowers in his yard and considers it nature.

Every place I have ever lived teamed with nature if you knew where to look. The worst was a high rise apartment building in a sea of concrete and asphalt. Even there, I could attract mourning doves, starlings, house wrens, and sparrows with a little seed sprinkled on my balcony. Even the run off ponds around here grow cattails as well as attract herons or geese. At dusk you can see foxes getting drinks. The point is that the ugliest weed growing out of a sidewalk crack is nature. Anything we can do to help (even on the simplest micro-clime level) helps. Sorry you can't see that.

St. Paul has it's own forestry department. Seen from the air, it's surprising how many trees there are in all these residential neighborhoods. My 55 year old maple tree is freaking enormous, and there are trees like that in every front yard in my neighborhood. Full of squirrel nests, bird nests, and more.

watt and reagan. just found the actual quote:


In the 1960's there was a conflict in California between the lumber industry and citizens who wanted to protect redwood forests. Reagan, then governor of the state, took the position that large redwood forests were not necessary; at one meeting he said, "If you've seen one redwood tree, you've seen them all."

Why he believed what he said, however, remains a mystery. Reagan, who was often attuned to nature, was strangely insensitive to the magnificence of the redwoods, long recognized as natural wonders of the world ... Reagan was reluctant even to acknowledge the grandeur of the trees. Of one of the oldest and loveliest groves of redwoods, he said (on 15 March 1967), "I saw them; there is nothing beautiful about them, just that they are a little higher than the others."

. . .

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/reagan/redwoods.asp

No US President has a worst environmental record than Reagan. He was scum.

meant to be in this zone). We've been increasing the size of the flowers beds slightly every year and our lawn is only a fraction of what it was when he moved in. The hostas, lirope, lavender, coneflowers, and other plants look better and attract more bees and butterflies.

I can't help thinking of all that wasted energy--- human and coal ---that goes into maintaining them and the contribution, however small compared to other sources, of green house gases. Then there is the fertilizers and pesticides that some people use. I wish the world could do away with lawns or at least, as in your case, not use any chemicals. That would be a start.

Bees are good, though.

There are a few on my block who treat their lawns with meticulous care. Most are retired and grew up in a lawn culture, and work hard to keep their lawn flawless. I have no real problem with that, as long as they don't bug me about my lawn au natural. I do try to mow the dandelions before they go to seed, but don't always get them all, so I guess I'm giving them something to dig up in the spring.

They don't produce anything - no flowers, no fruit - and people dump herbicides and pesticides and fertilizers all over them in order to make them look like a perfectly uniform and unnatural green carpet. And that crap gets into the water, which is wasted keeping them green in August when they are supposed to go dormant. I am so glad to see that at least some people are starting to figure out that the "weedless" lawn is a ridiculous, wasteful thing.

for watering the lawn once a week in winter, I knew the grass had to go.

I now have a dirt yard that I keep neat, an established mulberry tree in the middle of it and a few drought tolerant flowering plants next to my porch. The yard on one side has bark mulch because it's for sale, the bark will be blown over to Texas by the end of the fall. The yard on the other has gravel mulch with a few specimen plants. There are two people with lawns on my block, the rest have drought tolerant gardens that take very little watering.

Xeriscaping has been the norm here for over 15 years because of the insanely bad drought we've been in.

There are a few groundhogs around the area, and I'm trying to figure out what I can plant to attract one to make its home in my yard. It's welcome to burrow under the back of my garage, if it likes.

living in the back yard. I plant sweet potato and they love it, they also seem to like clover. Oh,and they LOVE fruit veggie scraps. Cantaloupe seems to be a favorite. People talk about how destuctive they are, but they have caused no harm in my yard. I love sitting on my back porch watching Momma and babies having breakfast !!

I see them around my neighborhood, but can't get close. If one lived in my backyard, I'd get a better view.

I never water, weed or feed it. the St. Augustine is long gone and what grass there is is native grasses.
In the summer my yard actually looks greener than the ones where they water, weed and feed.

current conditions.

I stopped using herbicides and pesticides on my yard about 20 years ago. Now because of the drought here in Texas I have also stopped watering my lawn. I am happy to say, I have the same variety of plants in my yard as you do. But, I also have lightning bugs in the evening and I have seen a horned toad in my garden twice. Horned toads were common when I was a child, but no more, especially in North Texas. Andro wiped them out in this area by killing the ants, their main source of food. I still get ants and they can be a problem especially the red ants because they sting. I now do what my grandmother always did. Flood them out with water.

lots of horned "toads" as a kid. Not so many any longer, and probably for the reason you mention. I'm glad you saw one in your yard. That's a hopeful sign. Here in Minnesota, the lightning bugs just showed up yesterday. I made a special trip outside to watch them.

No red ants here, but we had them in CA. We do have great big black ants, though, along with the little ones that get into your house. I leave them all alone, except in the house.

Bees and other insects can feed on the nectar, but when it comes to supporting other life stages, some introduced exotic weeds are not too useful. While insects may enjoy nectar from many sources, when they're ready to breed, their options may be quite limited when it comes to finding suitable host plants.

From your list, the only native I see is wild violas. I encourage their growth in my yard.

According to the Native wildlife gardens blog page, clover has useful wildlife value even though it's introduced. They're also nitrogen fixers, and come in useful for replenishing nitrogen from the atmosphere to the soil.

nativeplantwildlifegarden.com is a great resource for native lawn alternatives. Doug Tallamy's book, Bringing Back Nature, is a wonderful book about the value of native plants.


My long-term goal is to get rid of my lawn, replacing it with native groundcovers, native perennials and shrubs, and hardscapes for getting around. It's going to be a slow process, but very satisfying.

materials to plant, though. What surprised me about the wild violas was a clump of them in a place I don't mow. they actually can grow quite large. We do get some native plants from time to time as volunteers, and I encourage them. I keep some waste space in my yard that is allowed to grow as it pleases. Lots of native plants in there.

Yes, they can grow quite big! I've seen that as well.

I bet you could find a native plant group in MN (checked your profile to see where you were located), and get seed/plants from people. The DNR has some guidelines too. Here in Maryland, we have a small but strong native plant movement. I've received seed from people I've met online, and there are several nurseries selling native plants in the Baltimore-DC area.

As my garden gets more substantial, I plan to harvest some seed, leaving most of it as winter food for birds, so i can grow and give away native plants to my neighbors. I live in a grass lawn desert, and my neighborhood desperately needs more biodiversity to support wildlife.

The fragrance from the common milkweed is heavenly and it is a host plant for monarch butterflies. The flowers attract the most amazing variety of insects. Butterfly weed has the gorgeous orange flowers and is a little shorter plant. There are several varieties readily available from plant nurseries. Milkweeds are easy to grow, IMO.

Native sunflower species and coneflowers are also easy to grow and make a great addition to the garden. Asters and goldenrod (just call it solidago, like they do in the garden catalogs) are also great garden additions that spread out the blooming season into fall.

Creeping Charlie is a very interesting introduced species that has become a favorite plant by some of our native insects. It was used in brewing beer and as a substitute for rennet in cheese making.

Wikipedia lists a bunch of uses:
"Glechoma has culinary and medicinal uses which were the cause of its being imported to America by early European settlers. The fresh herb can be rinsed and steeped in hot water to create an herbal tea which is rich in vitamin C. It has a distinctive, mildly peppery flavor; it can be cooked as a pot herb, although it is most commonly eaten as a fresh salad green.[7]

Glechoma was also widely used by the Saxons in brewing beer as flavoring, clarification, and preservative, before the introduction of hops for these purposes; thus the brewing-related names, alehoof, tunhoof, and gill-over-the-ground."

our waste space, and it stays uncultivated. Whatever grows there grows there, but I'm trying to introduce natives into that space.

I ordered a whole bunch of plants from Prairie Moon Nurseries in Winona, just planted them last week. I got a couple of varieties of monarda (to add to the ones I already have), purple coneflower, yellow coneflower, prairie coreopsis, little bluestem, milkweed, wild asters, and wild white indigo, to name a few. I already have several very large clumps of blue wild indigo (baptisia) which I planted near my apple and cherry trees to supply nitrogen since these are legumes. I already have jacob's ladder, joe-pye weed, wild ginger, gooseberries, currants, solomon's seal, heath asters, goldenrod, raspberries, catnip, catmint, wild grape, greenbriar, several species of ferns and a bunch of other stuff, not to mention a few non-native plants like day lilies and hostas to fill in the holes. It's so much more fun than plain old grass.

as a ground cover. I'd love that.

We mowed it spring and fall to keep from getting fined, when it turned brown we didn't have to mow and that was it, end of story.

And mulching everything into it.

permanently fixed in place. What's interesting is that the dandelions seem to learn the mowing height and bloom lower than that after a few cuttings in the spring. Lower blooms survive. Higher blooms get whacked. I set it high to allow the wild violas to bloom, too.

that dictates all sorts of nonsensical ecologic conditions in the name of 'appearance'. I just wish we actually still had the bees to be buzzing through the clover in our yard.

They often seem to be managed by authoritarian busybodies. I think my golf-course-lawn-loving next door neighbor would probably happily run a HOA if he should ever move to such a place.

Both are especially important for colonies in northern temperate zones.

I don't mow barefoot. I remember being stung when I was a small child when stepping on a busy honeybee. It made me smart, in both meanings of the word.

Recommend you check AmericanMeadows.com. It has a large selection of wild flower seeds, selected for people who want to go back to a more natural and critter friendly landscape. There's regional, pollinator and even honey bee selections.

You may have some beekeepers in your area. Bees on average forage up to a mile and half from the hive. They will go farther for good pickin's.

They're those little black oil sunflowers, not the giant variety, so we'll see if they grow. I'll just keep mowing around them and see if they thrive.

as it weaves its way along. Used to have medicial use but now it spreads like wildfire. I wait until the beas get their fill of the blossoms and then go to work on it. Mostly I yank it out.. I found out that treating it in the late fall with herbicide is the best its takes it in as it goes dormant and kills it off.

it spreads too far. The plant I like the least in my yard is the giant burdock that seems to grow every year at the back corner of my garage. If I don't whack it down, it goes to seed and has those nasty seed pods that stick to your clothing.

And then there are the maple seedlings. We have a huge silver maple in our front yard and every last seed it makes seems to sprout. If you don't deal with them, the next year, they're four feet high. I keep getting new volunteer mulberries, too. The birds eat the berries and then spread the seeds around in splashes of purple poop. I try to keep them from growing beyond the small seedling stage.

Spending a fortune on irrigation water for the sheer pleasure of mowing grass in 95 degree heat twice a week was not for me. There has been too little rainfall to grow much of anything, but I have an established tree and a little drought tolerant garden in front of the porch so it looks tidy.

Other people have put down gravel mulch or have put in chamisa, Spanish broom, and other desert plants in yards that don't boast established trees.

When I had a lawn, it never dawned on me to fight the dandelions. I always thought they looked cheerful, their yellow heads poking above the grass.

By the way, you're in style: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303754904577530851855675044 Putting green lawns are out. Thank goodness.

That's a good thing. I've been a lazy lawn owner for a very long time, though. When my wife moved into my house in California, she asked why there wasn't a lawn. So, I bought a lawnmower and started watering. Pretty soon, we had a green place that I referred to as our lawn. A different mix of weeds than the one I have in Minnesota, now, but the same principle.

She caught on to the idea right away.

so a lot of plants that grow in wet meadow/marshy/wetland environments start to grow in my backyard. I don't kill these plants and simply mow over them so the brush doesn't get too high where it becomes an invitation for poisonous snakes. But the diversity of squirrels, ducks, lizards, beetles, honey bees, wasps, dragon flies, grasshoppers and most importantly black ants is amazing. My neighbors down the street that have neat grasses with little else biotic life tend to have problems with fire ants and termites. My backyard is also an open invitation for a large diversity of birds like crows, blue jays, sparrows, and sand cranes (really big birds), etc to keep the insect population in check. Spiders and frogs do that for me as well so I don't have a situation where mosquitoes dominate my backyard or my front porch. The eastern lubber grass hoper is a pest for crops but for me it is probably a good indicator of checks and balances for my backyard for example. I don't mow the lawn to low because that would deprive the lubber of a food source.

But as I mentioned before the sandhill cranes are my favorite as they are very large birds and they are the best way to keep the insect population in check for my backyard. They can be aggressive and are taller than me so it is best to watch from a far as they enjoy the feast.

P.S. I live in Florida so the diversity of animal life creating its own eco system niche is staggering when you don't use pesticides or weed killer.

I encountered an enormous one in California that I had never seen before. It turned out to be a Horse Lubber Grasshopper. When I found it, it was in the process of mating. The male was only about a quarter of the size of the female. I got photos which I used to identify the critter. Amazing!

Thanks!

The Monarch is MN's state butterfly and it's numbers are declining greatly!!
Milkweed is the Monarch larva's home and only food source! Could You not allow some Milkweed to mature somewhere on Your lawn???
Thanks so much!!!

The place I lived in California, on Morro Bay, was a haven for Monarchs. It's cool to have them here, too, in Minnesota.

because they are just too perfect a plant, will spread like wildfire, and left the rest. Mow the damn thing three times a week, natural fertilizer spring and fall, regular watering and damn if it is now not the most beautiful patch of living green and insect types that all seem to get along in subtle contrasts of shades of green.......but only it seems if I wack them with my battery electric mower relentlessly.

The chemical lawn just seems Frankenstein creepy to me now.

and about two weeks after we moved in it started to die. Without water and fertilizer it couldn't live. I spent years overseeding with various grasses. And it is now a mixed grass with clover lawn. We never use fertilizer(mulching mower) and never water in summer when it supposed to go dormant. We have bees on our clover and on our rhodies and even on my herbs.

We have little wild strawberries that make pea sized fruit that are incredibly sweet and flavorful. They seem to have adapted to the lawn mower by keeping their heads well below the blades.

Maybe they won't grow in Minnesota. I'll check on that. Back in California, there was a doctor's office that used wild strawberry plants as a ground cover. I saw that and noticed that the tiny berries were ripe, so I went into the office and asked if I could pick some. "What strawberries?" I explained and the receptionist said that she didn't care. So I picked enough to fill a couple of small styrofoam cups and took them home for that night's dessert. Yum!

Now I'm on the hunt for them. I'll find them soon.

MineralMan, our Springtime backyard was carpeted with tiny but beautiful purple blooms like miniature African Violets. Are those the Wild violas?

Some people call them dogtooth violets. They come in purple or white with purple stripes. You can eat them!

They are very bland, but turtles love them.

of a gum drop or smaller and bright red. They don't have the shininess that the commercial or garden varieties have.

They are wild, after all. And who knows, they might even have a few genes from cultivated varieties. You know, considering pollinators and all.

We're in 4 and every spring our lawn (former pasture land) is covered with them. I'd love to harvest, but the Cedar Waxwings vacuum them before I can get out the door.

my yard. Beautiful creatures.

After decades of pulling up this crap (Florida pusley), I finally gave up and am now paying to have my yard sprayed.




Dollar weed is a pain too. Both will suffocate your lawn and completely take over the yard.


As for the bees, they found a crack in my back wall and built a 5 ft. x 2 ft. bee hive. Removal and repairs cost thousands.


@#$% nature!!1!

any more. My garden is eerily quiet.

The planet needs more people like you and some of the lovely folks who have responded here.

I live in an apartment complex. They worship lawns, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. It smells disgusting on pesticide day. I've had bees and wasps swarm my windows after they dump the pesticides. It's heartbreaking. I actually started to search for a local beekeeper to capture the hive, but the bees left as quickly as they showed up.

One of my favorite things in the Spring is seeing yellow dandelions all over the place. They are so bright and happy. Also, they are food. Salad greens. Too bitter for my taste, but many people enjoy them. If you're into herbal medicine, dandelion is pretty powerful. Clover, too.

I cannot wait to have a house. I'll have a lawn full if dandelions, plantain, clover, and violas in addition to flower and veggie gardens. I also hope to create mason bee habitats.....something you may be interested in.

We used to be allowed to have bird feeders, but the complex is undergoing a "beautification project" and are no longer allowing bird feeders, garden gnomes, flags, or actual gardens - all in ground gardens will be replaced with lawn, trees cut, bushes ripped out. Beautification indeed. Just as I am writing this, the tree outside my window is loaded with blue jays and starlings, both of whom have very interesting language. My feeders are visited by also sorts of sparrows, finches, doves, cardinals, goldfinches, the occasional grosbeaks, wrens, titmouses (titmice?), chickadees, juncos(in winter), nuthatches, robins, jays, flickers, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, starlings, cowbirds, catbirds, and so much more. I am so sad that I will no longer see so many of them.

Also - having a more native lawn = better water conservation. I think this country could solve a ton of water problems if lawn culture died out.

I always figure if it looks level and green from the road, it is good enough.

hoping to see lots of bees and butterflies. I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas...just little sprouts here and there so far.

Patience was never one of my virtues.

And tonight I read about how if they were at Home Depot/Lowe's/anywhere, they'll probably kill them instead.

Sigh.

that do not carry or grow plants that have been treated with neonicotinoids. We have been pretty successful in pressuring the reputable garden centers, and now most of them either don't carry such plants at all, or else they label the ones that aren't treated. Don't buy plants at any of the big-box stores because they don't know where they come from - if you ask an employee about neonicotinoid-treated plants you'll just get a blank stare. Check with the master gardener program in your area; they can probably tell you where to buy safe plants. You're in Florida, right? Try here: http://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/mastergardener/

I know a couple of them are from a nursery in Riverview (just south of Tampa, where I am) so I can track down someone to call. The other is from Vigoro, so I'm almost positive that one is going to be poison.

but it's on my apartment balcony. Full of grass, bamboo, weeds I don't know the name of, offspring of seeds my husband collects from the wild, plants grown from cuttings and pits and seeds of vegetables and fruit, things dug up from the side of the road. I find that herbs and vegetables do much better as far as not being devoured by pests when there are lots of weeds around.

Last edited Sun Jun 8, 2014, 11:00 AM - Edit history (1)

The only problem is that I need to use a weed eater to cut down the fast growing stuff first, then follow up with the mower to even it all out. A little more time consuming, but not as time consuming as pulling all all the dandelions.

is a thoughtless guy. I planted our Giant Sequoia Charlie Brown Christmas tree 17 years ago.During the same time our dog, she was 12 yrs old, died, and we buried her by the tree. We call it by her name, the Yoshi tree and its grown spectacularly, well proportioned, about 30 feet high.

This guy was spraying Roundup on a windy day and sprayed the tree.


Edit for grammar.