Reduce carbon, costs and water waste, and boost biodiversity.

At enormous effort and ecological cost, non-native turfgrass has become our largest irrigated U.S. crop, bigger than corn, wheat and fruit trees combined. To nurture it we douse it with chemicals, trim and sweep it with gas-guzzling, air-polluting mowers and blowers, and overwater using 30-60% of our municipal fresh water supplies.

An easy first step to reduce turfgrass: plant a keystone tree or native pollinator patch.

Prioritize a keystone native crucial for wildlife, such as a native oak (host plant to more than 500 native caterpillars), cherry (429 native caterpillar species), willow shrub (440) or birch (400), or add more goldenrods (112) or asters (105) for your pollinator garden. Encircle with mulch and ta dah: less lawn. (There are species of goldenrod and aster that are not aggressive.)

Or swap out lawn for a low-growing turf-like grass.

Consider buffalo grass (sun) or Pennsylvania sedge (sun-shade). To transition from turfgrass, you can smother your grass with cardboard, cover it with compost and mulch, add seeds and keep it moist. Depending on precipitation or watering, in @4 months the cardboard tends to have mostly decayed, enhancing the soil. Alternatively, you can smother (solarize) with plastic, but then the plastic must be removed to allow planting. Or you can dig up your turfgrass, but then you are removing the topsoil with the turf.

If you keep some lawn, mow it less often.

Let clovers and violets provide some nectar and seed. Mowing stops turf grass from producing seeds or blooms, diminishing the limited food it could provide to wildlife. 

Mow less is one of the six items in the Pollinator Pledge.

‍Improve habitat for birds and pollinators when you Take the Pollinator Pledge.

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BUFFALO GRASS, ANYONE?

Natural Habitat Evanston is offering half-pound bags of buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides)

$25/bag to local residents (pickup; no shipping). Email Habitat@ClimateActionEvanston.Org to get on the list for when it arrives in April or May. We also have some $5 seed packets of bottlebrush and little bluestem grass, which are taller and often used as accent grass in native gardens. You can order up to one bag or packet of each species, while supplies last. Emails should include your phone number and which species you are requesting. Pay by check payable to Natural Habitat Evanston at pickup.

Buffalo grass is a gray-green colored grass, 4-8" tall that needs SUN. It is a North American native, but likely migrated to Illinois from plains short grass prairies and railroad workers.