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Several years ago, developers cut down a giant tract of woods practically across the street from my house in order to build a brand new housing community. Cookie cutter homes with early 90’s Tim Burton level “perfect lawns” stretching over hundreds of acres.
I started taking my walks down that way, since at a minimum they had sidewalks along the entire stretch making my evening walks a bit safer than trying to navigate the roadsides without them.
A couple of springs after the monstrosity was built, there was a house where about 1/4 of the lawn was covered in the mounds of ground nesting bees. I specifically chose my walking path each day so that I could go by there to witness the spectacular display. It was so neat watching the bees, males hovering over the mound nests fighting off rivals and trying to entice females. The melodious buzz of hundreds of bees dancing around the entrances to their nests was the highlight of my stroll.
Then one day I walked by and the owner of that yard was outside talking to someone from a pest control company about how to get rid of the bees in their yard. I’m not one to intrude on people, but since I was stopped at the intersection due to traffic and I overheard the conversation, I did mention to them that these mounds would be gone in a matter of days regardless of whether they were sprayed or not, and that the bees are non-aggressive natives that wouldn’t/couldn’t sting you and posed no threat.
A week or so later there was a sign in the yard with some statement that basically said to avoid touching the grass, keep pets and children out, dangerous pesticides had been sprayed.
The optimist in me wants to believe that something I read is true, and it basically stated that traditional pesticides are not usually very effective against ground nesting bees because the adults are short lived anyway, and most of the commonly used pesticides bind to soil and therefore don’t usually penetrate deeply enough down into the soil to kill the larva/offspring.
This is why I refuse to touch that shit. It killed the birds and the bees! It’s toxic AF!
I live in a van, I’ve spent a lot of time deep in the woods all across the US. There are still hardly any insects when the nearest lawn is dozens of miles away. This is almost definitely related to industrial scale pollution effecting the entire ecosystem not just just localized habitat destruction.
I live in California’s central valley. It’s a big area that’s kind of similar to the serenghetti in terms of ecology in that it’s technically a desert purely by rainfall measures, but it’s a seasonal wetland in practice. Suffice it to say that bugs used to be off the fucking hook here; if you drove for forty minutes, your car was caked. Now, you barely get six bugs. Scared the shit out of my nature-loving mom when I pointed that out.
Not my lawn. I’ve been selectively breeding my yard to only have highly drought tolerant native plants. My neighbor brags about his st Augustine monoculture and the $400 a month water bill to keep it alive, but always asks me what my secret is because I literally never water, fertilize, or poison it (besides with specific poison for invasive fire ants).
Although I am planning on seeding clover this year, largely because I plan on urban farming in my backyard, but I won’t complain about the nitrogen fixing in the front either.
Your lawn sounds far more interesting than his. I hate the cookie cutter, artificially green lawns.
I think it looks better, but I’m an outdoorsman at heart so I prefer nature.
I dead ass had a pest company come to my door and offer to flush my lawn with pesticide to get rid of all the bugs in it. I said “my guy, did you know that global insect populations are crashing and we’re heading towards complete ecological collapse? I recognize everyone’s gotta get their bread, but this is pretty bad stuff you guys are doing.” He seemed interested and moved on. I doubt he quit the company, but a boy can dream.
Edit: no HOA, and my neighbors dgaf, so I can be a proud dandelion enjoyer. Planting tons of natives, we’ll see how it goes.
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Yeah, fescue is not my friend. I’m looking into growing some native clump grasses and clovers and replacing my lawn with that. There’s some downright interesting plants that used to be all over the San Joaquin valley. Drives me batty when people say that nothing used to grow here before it was settled and cultivated.
This sounds very cool! I am also in the valley, up in Sacramento. It’s somewhat of a tough climate for the ornamental native gardener since a lot of stuff turns brown in summer which can piss off the neighbors. Love me some Triteleias though, that might be my favorite native species–since you’re a forager you may know the bulbs are edible. I’m also growing Brodiaea, Sanicula bipinnata (which I call wild cilantro, it’s edible and tastes similar), milkweed, miner’s lettuce, and calochortus. Phyla nodiflora is another great one for a lawn alternative if you want that.
Wow! I’m jealous. I always assumed that calochortus and Triteleias and Brodiaea would be difficult to start from seed; I’ve only ever seen them growing in the Sierra mountains and foothills, though I’ve got a book that talks about how the Spanish saw them blanketing vast swaths of the valley. I’ll take a note of these, S. Bipinnata and p. Nodiflora are new ones on me. I’m also impressed that you’re growing miner’s lettuce, I’ve seen it growing wild in the valley, but it’s rare ime.
I’ve been trying to work up the gumption to try growing narrow leaf milkweed, but I always talk myself down because they seem to be very fickle germinators. Kinda similar, I tried growing some Yerba Santa, but they’re also apparently very fickle about sprouting conditions and I didn’t get any from the last packet I ordered.
Calochortus has been a bit tricky, the others were quite easy. I just collected some seed from nearby empty open spaces and put them in pots and they grew. You have to know where to find them though–they’re mostly in the hills now because those were never plowed, but there are small areas here and there that weren’t laser-leveled with the rest of the valley. iNaturalist can be helpful for these.
They seem to do better if you extend the growing season with irrigation in fall and spring but even without they do fine. So far they don’t survive when I put them in the ground though, not sure why. Pest issue maybe.
Interesting that miner’s lettuce is rare where you are. It’s a weed that grows in the sidewalk here. I guess it does like a lot of moisture, and it gets a lot drier further south. We get about 18 inches of rain here which is plenty in winter, and since it dies back in spring it doesn’t mind the summer.
Phacelia is another one I’ve been wanting to try. There’s one at a local park that is always teeming with bees.
I just googled Phacelia and holy moly! That looks amazing! Yeah, where I’m at, the miner’s lettuce really only grows in partially shady low spots down here, the kind of stuff that’s usually overtaken with stinging nettle, sow thistle, and fescue. It’s much more common to see it in damp, low lying, shady areas in the hills at my latitude.
This is really great stuff! You know, take it or leave it, I run a Lemmy community for California native plants at https://lemm.ee/c/ca_native_plants (I forget the right way to link a community on Lemmy, sorry). I’d really appreciate it if you’d indulge me with some pictures and updates there! I plan on sharing my own progress as things get out of the seedling stage.
Cool! I just subscribed. I’m not really too fussed about aesthetics so my back yard where I grow this stuff is a total mess that I’d be a bit embarrassed to share but I’ll think about it. Maybe if I get any flowers this spring. Or I could share some of the native plants I see around my neighborhood in other spaces.
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I edited this in after you posted. Right now I’ve got California Poppies, Black Sage seedlings and Coyote Mint seedlings. There’s an epilobium species growing here that might be native and edible or non-native and poisonous (I’m an experienced and cautions forager; seems like epilobiums can be kinda bastards to tell apart, so I’m not going to proceed further there), and red clover. I’m looking into getting some Nodding Needlegrass, Three-awn grass, and some Triteleia spp. I was looking at Owl Clover, but it’s parasitic on grasses, and I don’t to piss off the neighborhood by setting off an epidemic of parasitic owl clover (my power level isn’t quite that high yet). I’ve also scattered some nettle-leaf hyssop seeds, but I seem to be coming up zeroes on that front. Now, my neighbor is a heavy irrigator and always floods my side yard after years of asking them to manage it better. Nothing grows there but mud or water-loving non-native grasses, so I got my hands on some cattail seeds (and dill and fennel) and scattered them in there. I’m curious to see if I can get some cattails going.
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Lmao, I’m hoping I might get a reaction when swamp plants start coming up on their side of the fence. At any rate, cattails are such a dead useful plant, if I get a good crop of them (or better, a mix of them and dill/fennel), I won’t be too mad at the neighbor.
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Fennel is actually an invasive species in CA so I wouldn’t recommend this.
However, foraging for it is great. Plenty to go around already.
No drop of rain blames themselves for the flood.
I’m sorry, he wanted to exterminate your garden?
That is the stupidest thing I have heard in ages.
edit: as in, stupid on the pest company.
I mean that’s a growth market if you can convince people it’s something they need.
The best part is it’s outdoors, so the bugs will come back and then you get repeat business! I bet you even get some whales who get you out for it every month!
This is actually how “entrepreneurs” think. They’ll come up with these evil, manipulative schemes and think they’re being clever.
Yeah, exactly right. I was fucking flabbergasted at first, but I had to make sure dude understood what he was doing to earn his bread
Hopefully you saved some other insects from him.
One can hope
Or the obvious, these bugs keep the yard healthy
I have a yard for my dog. But also have a massive vegetable garden, insect houses, different flowers for attracting different helpers, worm garden, and soon bees will be getting a home for honey.
All this can be done in a backyard and it’s honestly way less hassle to set up than dealing with fruit and veg picking in the store.
Assess what’s on your plate most, what grows well in your region, which bugs help the most, and grab some seeds! Tastes so much better too, omg.
I remember my old house, i replaced 75% of the lawn with a flower garden and meadow flowers, moss, etc. the HOA was PISSED. I swear HOAs exist only to be miserable killjoys
My dad did the same with his, only to find his neighbour had tried (sincerely) to be helpful and mowed it while dad was out of town. My dad does not speak highly of his neighbor’s intelligence.
Mowed…the moss?
I’m not sure what stage of rewilding his garden had reached at that time, don’t think there was a lot of moss, mainly flowers and whatnot.
Our first one of the year earlier this week
Incorrect. The earth is sick, infected with a particularly nasty strain of the Human virus. The fever may take a while to kill the infection, and may take a few species with it, but temperatures rise, and rise.
This is fascist talk. Humans can and have co-habitated with the ecology of the earth for as long as there’s been hominids, except for the last 300-150 years or so. Let me ask you: what changed?
You have a strange definition of fascist
Victorian aristocracy: ah, yes, mowed laws, because useful land is for peasants.
Americans: FREEDOM LAWNS
A major cultural component of the US is the cult of wealth. You’re kind of taught/expected to put forward the veneer and appearance of economic success and wealth, even if you are neither. Fundamentally, Americans have been taught a sort of economic moralism that goes that good people become wealthy people and bad people become poor people, ergo the wealthy are good and the poor are bad. So, you want to project that you’re a good person, and one way to do that is projecting the appearance of wealth. Shit drives me bananas, man.
The chinese used to present their wealth by making dumplings with a lot of meat and thin wrappings.
Pollinators HATE this one simple trick!
*Solely
Fuck. I googled it and everything, but still misread it.
Now you got me looking at the word “solely” and wondering for the first time at how weird a word it is.
Still get knocks on my door from companies wanting to help me with my yard.
No thanks.
Bunnies made homes in leaves, I get to watch a red-tailed hawk hunt in my backyard with their adolescent hawks, baby deer taking naps in the grass, the turtles still visit and have a places to lay their eggs (small pond on property), peeper frogs in the spring, lightning bugs like crazy in the summer, 3ft garder snake that suns in the bushes / front steps in the summer, birds have taken over the bushes and my dogs get to chase bunnies and watch the birds from the windows.
Besides this being a remenant of slave ownership, look how many slaves I have to keep my lawn perfectly manicured type thing, it’s just another capitalist shit storm they sell you to keep you from seeing what’s really going on and paying more for things that are ultimately killing you, us, everyone.
Oh, and I don’t spend every waking fucking moment on the weekends, mowing, raking, moving specific nature into another spot, all for vanity’s sake and to turn around and do it all over again.
Or go get gas, spill it filling up the lawn mower, further pollute the atmosphere etc., (my stuff is electric anyways).
So many benefits to this.
Take your time and energy back.
Stop fighting nature.
Let the planet live like it wants.
Do you just let your grass grow wild or planted something like clover like others are suggesting?
For now, I let it grow wild and mow it in certain areas because the grass grows so long and thick it’s like a foot tall shag rug standing up. My dogs get lots in it and there’s a ton of ticks if I don’t.
I also already have wild strawberries, clovers, etc. and I’m happy for those to take over the yard. But I want to add patches / areas of native wild flowers eventually. Help the pollinators out some more.
There’s a place, in my state, that sells native griund cover and even gives tips on how to ‘kill’ your yard and replace with native ground cover.
I also didn’t specify, my backyard is all open and I’ve let that go completely. It’s really fun to see how nature has taken it back.
Part of the front is fenced in, to keep the dogs safe, but that’s the only part I do any mowing in, so I can see my pups when the grass grows too long.
Thanks for asking!
What do you do with yours?
I let it grow for a 3 weeks before cutting. Nothing special over here. My grass grows slow so that’s nice.
I’ve thought of doing some planting but I get over whelmed and just let it go
Still seems nice to not have to mow every weekend :) I think the clove just grows and doesn’t take much effort, but killing the lawn seems overwhelming.
Hope you can get to the point where you can let it go :)
Nope, not my yard.
Lawns are giant funko pops for the modern suburbanite home owner.
