My lawn is crappy. . .and that is just fine with me

I needed to mow our lawn this weekend as tall tufts of grass stand high over adjacent dormant patches. Unlike many aficionados of a lawn comprising a monoculture of grass that is as smooth as a championship golf green, my undulating and ankle-spraining turf has countless varieties of plants. And I intend to keep it that way.

When we bought our home nearly 30 years ago, we had a “perfect” lawn.  Nothing but one or two cultivars of grass in undulating uniformity. What we didn’t have were bugs, birds, worms, frogs, toads, newts and anything else that connotes a chemical-free environment. Over the years as we stopped applying chemicals in all forms, a wonderful thing happened: life returned to our yard.

While it may look horrible to some, our front is beautiful to us. One thing that has helped is the planting of native fescue (Festuca) grasses along with white clover (Trifolium repens) to eliminate the need to fertilize. As a canvas, these plantings over the years have accommodated a varying and wide variety of beneficial plants that come and go over time.

Today, wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca) are making a good run at taking over a large swath of space over one of my septic fields. Though its tiny berries are a bit bitter, the squirrels and birds don’t care at all. There are lots of other useful plants in our lawn that most would consider weeds. They include:

Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans)
Clover
Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale)
Dock sorrel (Rumex)
Lady’s smock (Cardamine pratensis)
Marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris)
Plantain (Plantago major)
Violets (Viola sororia)
Wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum)
Wild strawberries
Wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella)

Most of these plants can be ingested by a person or animal and all attract pollinators. Cutting the lawn, I notice the bees, flies, gnats and other bugs flying around the flowers and being nourished. Tiny strawberries have started to form that our local warren of rabbits will start to much on. And dandelion flowers are nearly ready to be harvested for muffins.

Because the grass is patchy and I don’t want to cut any flowering plants, my manual Scotts reel lawnmower needs to be manipulated as would a car on an obstacle course zigging and zagging its way around. Marsh marigolds and violets are avoided at all costs.

I see a rustle in the tall grass ahead and quickly stop. A single gray toad looks at me and then hops away into the adjacent woods. Life has returned to our lawn and I couldn’t be happier.