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Mow Less, Live More: The Case for a Wilder Yard
- bluestemnatives
- May 2
- 5 min read
A hot topic lately is how to have less lawn — and honestly, it's about time.
Traditional turf grass doesn't offer much to the environment. It requires regular fertilizer and irrigation to stay green, demands constant mowing to satisfy the neighborhood aesthetic, and the gas-powered equipment we use to maintain it — mowers, leaf blowers, edgers — takes a real toll. Gas powered garden equipment engines produce up to 5% of the nation’s air pollution.
That said, some turf grass does have its place. If you've got kids playing soccer in the backyard, or you host summer barbecues, having some open grass makes sense. Nobody's asking you to rip out everything. But here's the thing — Lawns cover approximately 40 million acres in the U.S., making turf the single largest irrigated "crop" in the country — lawns take up an enormous amount of space and energy, and give almost nothing back to local wildlife. Their shallow root systems (often only 2–3 inches deep) do little to absorb stormwater runoff, contributing to erosion and water pollution in local waterways.
"Can't I just add clover?"
It's a reasonable thought — and a popular one — but unfortunately, we don't love this non-solution solution. Adding non-native clover is really just swapping one monoculture for another. It also attracts honeybees as the clovers sold for lawns mostly co-evolved with the non-native honeybee (honeybees are a story for another day). So if you enjoy walking barefoot in your yard and prefer not to find that out the hard way that honeybees love clover... skip the clover. Don't ask me how my feet know...twice...in the span of two days.
So what can you do?
The good news is there's a whole spectrum of options — from small tweaks to full transformations — depending on what you need from your yard. Here are a few places to start:
Option 1: Think "area rug," not "wall-to-wall carpet"
You don't have to eliminate your lawn entirely. Even shrinking it by a foot or two along the edges and replacing that border with low native groundcover makes a real difference for pollinators, birds, and soil health. Some easy, currently available, and low growing favorites, depending on your conditions:
Part sun/shade:
Full sun:
3-toothed cinquefoil, Sibbaldiopsis tridentata (a personal favorite)
Or go a little bolder and put in a small wildflower bed right alongside your lawn:
Part sun/shade:
Full sun:
Or go a little extra wild and make your lawn just paths through plantings. My dad created paths throughout their property, with occasional mowing, and walking those paths was really magical.
Great photo from New Directions in the American Landscape. I highly recommend watching and reading everything Larry Weaner.
Option 2: Replace your lawn with something that looks like a lawn (but isn't)
Want something that still feels like a lawn — low, green, potentially walkable — without the neverending mowing commitment? A native sedge or grass lawn might be exactly what you're looking for. These can be mowed occasionally if you like, or left alone entirely, and they provide far more ecological value than turf.
A sedge lawn in particular is one of our favorites for its soft, lush look that requires almost no maintenance once established. We're actually selling sedge and grass plug packs for the month of May only — once these are gone, we won't be restocking this year. All of these species can be left to grow but can also be mowed, they just need a heck of a lot less mowing than tradiitonal turf. And zero fertlizer.
Species | Sold as a Set of: | Price per Flat/Plug | Details: |
Carex pensylvanica | 16 plugs | $96 ($6 each) | Part sun in average to dry sites. Ok in full sun with more moisture. 8" tall without mowing. |
Carex appalachica | 16 plugs | $96 ($6 each) | Part sun to shade, average to dry sites. 8" tall without mowing. |
Carex radiata | 16 plugs | $96 ($6 each) | Part sun to shade, moist to average sites. 12" tall without mowing. |
Bouteloua curtipendula | 25 plugs | $99.95 ($3.99 each) | Sunny and dry to average sites. 2' tall without mowing. |
Eragrostis spectabilis | 25 plugs | $99.95 ($3.99 each) | Sunny and dry sites. 2' tall without mowing. |
Option 3: "The Matrix"
No not that "Matrix". Take Option 2 and spice it up a little. Matrix planting is a naturalistic approach to garden design where you create a plant community rather than placing individual specimen plants. Instead of spotting plants here and there, you weave together multiple species across a large area so they form an interlocking, self-sustaining tapestry — mimicking how plants grow together in the wild.
The concept was popularized by designers like Piet Oudolf (New York City High Line) and researchers like James Hitchmough, and it translates beautifully to native plant gardening because you're essentially rebuilding a small piece of the plant community that originally belonged in your region.
The Basic Structure
A matrix planting typically has two layers:
The matrix (ground layer) — one or a few tough, adaptable species planted in high density that spread to "hold" the space. These are your workhorses. See all those sedges and grasses in the Option 2 section above? Those would all work perfectly as the matrix. You can even grab a few flats of different species and mix them!
The design plants — flowering perennials, taller grasses, or even small shrubs woven through the matrix at a lower density. These provide seasonal interest, extra pollinator value, and visual variety. We have some great species, avaiable now although...as Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast..." — and so do our plants. Check "Option 1" for some great additions to your matrix.
Why Matix Plantings Work So Well for Native Plants
Native plants evolved in communities, so matrix planting aligns with how they actually grow. The benefits are significant:
Weed suppression — dense planting leaves no bare soil for weeds to colonize
Lower maintenance — once established, the community is largely self-regulating
Ecological value — layered, diverse plantings support far more insects, birds, and pollinators than traditional beds
Resilience — if one species struggles, others fill the gap
Thanks for Reading!
If you'd like to dig deeper into lawn replacement and making your outdoor space work harder for the environment, here are some additional resources:
Todd Bitner, Cornell University, great podcast interview
Why a Clover Lawn is Not Helping, Prairie Up (great Matrix resources as well)
Mark Richardson "Kill your lawn", he talks about specific methods to get rid of your lawn
Three Native Sedges Made for the Shade, Dyck Arboretum
An Experiment in Organic Lawn to Meadow Conversion: A Timeline, NDAL
:) Britt
