Not Cutting It

Across America, where meticulously manicured lawns in many areas are facing unprecedented drought and an uncertain climate future, a movement is afoot to diversify lawns by mowing less.

A driver of this is No Mow May, a 2019 campaign by the British nonprofit Plantlife that encourages homeowners to stop mowing for one month in spring to encourage plant diversity and create more fodder for pollinators. Tempted by the idea of flower-filled meadows, some Americans have jumped on the No Mow bandwagon, only to find their yards full of wind-pollinated grasses and their mailboxes stuffed with HOA citations.

It’s an admirable attempt to get people to try something different with their yards, says Dr. Sean Griffin, director of science and conservation at the Wildflower Center, but it falls short of making much of an impact.

“No Mow May doesn’t tell the complete story,” Griffin says. “Most native bees and pollinators need resources throughout the whole growing season. And if you are doing No Mow for a single month and the rest of the time mowing as normal, you are likely just encouraging a bunch of lawn weeds that don’t benefit the pollinators.” 

CULTIVATING A MONOCULTURE

Our modern obsession with having a perfectly uniform and green yard can be tied to Europe as far back as the 17th and 18th centuries, when landscape paintings of the exquisitely kept gardens and short cut lawns of Versailles inspired early American landscape designs in places like Monticello and Mount Vernon. 

After the Civil War, Americans started congregating in cities, where little cultivable land existed. But after the industrial revolution, they returned to rural areas, where homeowners —  or even renters — could have their own tapis vert (French for “green carpet.”). A lawn to take care on the weekends. A place where kids could play in the sprinkler.

To keep that grass preternaturally green and unblemished, people quickly turned to fertilizers and pesticides. Throw in a gas-powered lawnmower and white picket fence, and you have an almost stereotypical picture of the American dream that hasn’t changed much in the last century.

Front yards in particular became an expression of power, a sign for all the world to see that the man who took care of it — and it was most likely a man until just 30 or 40 years ago — had the ability to conquer nature and command it into submission. 

In a country that values individualism, lawns seem to be one of the few places where we prize uniformity. But after a century of monoculture, Americans are realizing that diversity in any ecosystem is healthier for everything that lives in that ecosystem — including humans.

DOES NO MOW MAY FIX ANYTHING?

Most of us learned how to take care of our yards from our parents, who learned from their parents and so on, says Andrea DeLong-Amaya, director of horticulture at the Wildflower Center.

“Those habits get passed down whether they are good or not,” DeLong-Amaya says, and as people move around the country, they take their lawncare practices with them, but what works in New York or Oregon won’t work in Texas.

Having a cultivated lawn is something that many Americans are reluctant to give up, so it’s surprising that No Mow May has gained as much traction as it has among U.S. gardeners. 

In places with milder spring and summer climates, like the upper Midwest where DeLong-Amaya is from, homeowners might have more success with mowing less during the month of May, but by the same time in Texas, conditions are comparable to what would be considered “summer” elsewhere. 

The types of grasses that fill lawns from coast to coast vary, but for the most part, they are monocultures of species like St. Augustine (Stenotaphrum secundatum), Bermuda (Cynodon dactylon) and zoysia (Zoysia spp.) that do nothing for butterflies and bees, says DeLong-Amaya.

“If you just stop mowing, even for a month, the only thing that is going to come up is the grass getting taller,” DeLong-Amaya says. “Even if you have the native buffalograss, it’s not going to do much for pollinators.” 

Rather than skipping a month of mowing, Griffin suggests a “slow mowing” strategy of cutting back on how frequently you mow all year round — every two or three weeks during the height of the growing season and once every month or even more infrequently during the dormant months. 

He knows this isn’t feasible for every lawn, but his ideal mowing schedule would be once a year in late September or early October right before the rains begin.

SEEDING PLANT DIVERSITY

Improving the micro-ecology of your yard requires more than not mowing as often, Griffin and DeLong-Amaya say. 

You have to actively plant new types of low growing flowers and grasses that don’t mind a little disturbance now and then. She recommends seeding native broadleaf herbaceous plants and low-growing creepy plants, such as scarlet pea (Indigofera miniata), copper lily (Habranthus tubispathus), prairie fleabane (Erigeron modestus), gray golden-aster (Heterotheca canescens), verbena (Verbena spp.), pink evening primrose (Oenothera speciosa), and native ruellia (Ruellia spp.). Look into other kinds of groundcover, such as frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), which has a habitat value greater than grass. These are plants that tolerate being mowed periodically and provide fodder for pollinators if you decide to skip a month of mowing here and there.

Griffin recommends buying seeds from places like Native American Seed outside of Junction, Texas, which sells mixes of native grasses and flowers that will promote the greatest diversity of both plant and insect species. (The Wildflower Center sells several of these varieties in its Shop.) 

“Leave the leaves” is another lawn care philosophy that is gaining traction, but DeLong-Amaya says this one requires scrutiny. While not all leaves break down quickly over time, especially the live oak leaves that fall each spring when the trees molt, it’s true that most leaves are harmless, even beneficial. You can rake your leaves and use them as mulch in your flower beds or around trees, which will help retain moisture during the hot months, or you can add to your compost pile. 

AN EXPERIMENT AND AN EXPERIENCE

Think of No Mow as a science experiment rather than a game-changer, DeLong-Amaya says. 

Leave a corner of your yard unmowed for a few weeks in April and May and again in October and November and see what happens. Take notes so you can reference them in the future. Get your kids or even teenagers involved so they can start taking note of the habitat they call home. She points out that bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis), which are among the first flowers to bloom each spring, act as a natural deterrent to excessive mowing during a time of year when pollinators are looking for food.

She understands that not everybody has the time or interest to tear up the expensive sod in the backyard, but a little can go a long way. “Even planting lantana in a pot can be beneficial.” 

She doesn’t recommend using chemicals on lawns because they are tied to the decline of insects — and not just butterflies and bees, which seem to get all the attention in the No Mow May campaign — but all of them, which affects the entire food chain. 

“Not everybody is touchy feely about insects, but birds survive by eating insects and most people like having birds around,” DeLong-Amaya says. “It’s not just about the butterflies and the bees.”

DeLong-Amaya takes the long view when talking about whether or not to let your grass grow longer than usual. She wants us to stop thinking about lawn care as a chore, she says. 

“Don’t rely on what commercials tell you your yard should look like,” DeLong-Amaya says. “We are in an existential crisis right now because people are so disconnected from nature. We don’t value it. And we are screwed if we don’t turn that around. If we all start thinking about our lawns as a mini ecosystem that we have a responsibility to tend, the better off we’ll be as a global community.”

If you’re feeling confused about what’s best for your yard, you can always take classes through your local extension office, the Wildflower Center or organizations like the Austin Permaculture Guild. There are lots of landscape designers and permaculturists who can help assess the specific conditions and needs of your yard. 

WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBORS THINK?

Matt O’Toole knows a thing or two about dealing with HOAs. 

A few years ago, the director of lands and operations at the Wildflower Center lived in Kyle, and when he tried to cultivate a yard with native flowers and grasses, “it was HOA notification central at our house,” he says. His household received citations for, among other things, having bluebonnets growing amid the St. Augustine grass. 

O’Toole specializes in the restoration of landscapes in urban and rural settings and has since moved to Wimberley, where he has been building up organic material on the thin, low-nutrient Hill Country soil. Within just a few years, he’s already seeing a natural diversification of the plants growing in his yards that includes little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) and milkweed (Asclepias spp.), the latter of which is a critically important source of food for many species of butterflies, including the monarch (Danaus plexippus).

Although O’Toole doesn’t have to worry about an HOA anymore, he understands that keeping up appearances is something many people have to take into consideration, even if they are just trying to keep the peace with their neighbors.

“The biggest thing is keeping a clean edge,” he says. That’s how you can communicate to neighbors that whatever you have going on in your yard is intentional. “You can do almost anything, as long as you keep that edge clean. It makes it look purposeful.”

Drought-conscious gardeners got a boost in 2013, when the Texas State Legislature passed S.B. 198, which prohibits homeowners’ associations from restricting property owners who want to install drought-resistant landscaping, water-conserving turf or rainwater collection systems, such as rain barrels. 

Many HOAs require property owners to submit a variance request, but it is worth looking into if you are determined to have a yard that incorporates some of these strategies.

O’Toole encourages people to focus on the small successes. “You don’t want to overcommit, and then walk away in complete failure. You’ll lose your motivation. Take on a little at a time and then grow from there.”

Restoring a lawn into prairie can take a number of years, so O’Toole recommends creating a pocket prairie by seeding with panicums, gramas, little bluestem, big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), purple top (Tridens flavus) and Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans). Eventually, you can transition to having just a pocket of manicured lawn, which would allow you to have some area for kicking around a soccer ball or enjoying the feeling of walking around barefoot on grass. 

O’Toole doesn’t own a mower and prefers to manage his property using a string trimmer twice a year to mimic the dormancy cycle of perennial grasses, once in February as spring is starting to awaken and again in July when the plants start to dry out.

Using the trimmer during these times of year also helps distribute the seeds more effectively than a mower, which concentrates the thatch and isn’t good for the soil or for seed germination. It also allows you to avoid wildflowers that might be starting to come up and creates a textured plane that is more forgiving for folks who can’t spend every weekend maintaining their yard.

Changing decades-long yard maintenance habits can take more than one growing season, Griffin says. “I worry about giving people too much homework, so I try to give them permission to do less work rather than more.” 

Like his Wildflower Center colleagues, Griffin recommends starting with a corner of your yard to experiment with new plant varieties and maintenance strategies. “If you use native plants and shrink the amount of lawn you have to care for, it reduces the amount of work you have to do while still having a yard that looks good.” 

Griffin noted that, in some ways, property owners are darned if they do something ecologically significant for their yard and darned if they don’t. During last year’s drought, the city of Austin gave citations to people who were watering their lush green lawns outside of the restricted days, while HOAs were fining people who let their grass die naturally. 

CHANGING LAWN CULTURE

With so many people moving to Texas and the sprawling neighborhoods being built to accommodate them, it’s going to take a long time to change Texas lawn culture, even with worsening drought conditions, but Griffin finds hope in places like Tucson, where homeowners have shifted their entire culture away from traditional lawns to xeriscaping. 

Daphne Richards, the Travis County extension agent for horticulture, is quick to point out that xeriscaping does not mean desert. 

“People think that xeriscaping  is taking out all the plants and putting in rocks and desert plants,” she says. “That’s not it at all. It’s a philosophy that builds your landscape with water conservation in mind.” 

Plants that require the most water are planted closest to the house, and everything gets a proper layer of mulch to keep water in. What people don’t realize is that grass is a kind of living mulch that keeps water in the soil, insulates soil from the sun and prevents erosion. 

“We never want people to change everything to rock,” she says. “Taking grass out and replacing it with non-living material [including Astroturf] is not the answer.” 

“We need something living on our soil, whether that’s a lawn that you water judiciously or something else, but something needs to cover the ground so when we have water deluges, the soil doesn’t get washed away. Grass is like a living mulch, and it prevents erosion.” 

Richards knows that the majority of property owners aren’t ready to give up their manicured lawns, so she advocates for people to take good care of what they have by first being informed about what they have. Take note to see if you have horseherb (Calyptocarpus vialis), native ruellia species (Ruellia spp.), rainlily (Cooperia pedunculata) or other native “weeds” already growing in your yard. Maybe avoid mowing them to encourage them to spread. 

“It’s complex for people to understand. Mowing, fertilizing, watering — these are all challenging tasks, especially with the unpredictable climate. Lawn care isn’t one-size-fits-all.” 

She sympathizes with people who have tried to seed or plant new species only to have them die during a prolonged drought. Even native plants in the sun need supplemental water during the summers we’ve been having, she says. 

It’s easy to want to give up on your yard after a particularly tough stretch of drought, but Richards says it’s important not to just ignore what’s outside your house. 

“I don’t beat people up for having a lawn,” she says. “If you know how to take care of a lawn, it will come back after a dormant summer.” If you do fertilize, wait until the end of May, and only do it a few times a year, not every month. 

Whatever you do, don’t cut your grass more than a third of its total length or you’ll damage the plant. So if you let it grow tall, you’ll have to cut it back slowly over several weeks. 

“It’s good to think about reducing the size of the lawn, but consider what you need from your yard. You are part of the ecosystem, too.”

In a state with such a strong sense of identity, Texans will chart their own course when it comes to lawns, but hopefully No Mow May will encourage them to learn the strategies that work best for their property, no matter its size or what’s growing on it already. 

Mow less. Mow later. And plant wisely. After a few seasons, you might not be mowing at all.