When we had this house built, I wanted a new deal. We had lived in the previous one for 20 years, almost to the day, and I had cut the lawn and cut the lawn. It wasn’t a big lawn or a big job but I didn’t like it. We both thought it would be more fun, more natural (that was before the word “green” was commonly used to mean environmentally friendly) to have wild plants instead of a lawn of grass.
Somewhere, we read that “lawns are the neckties houses wear”. I realized that fewer and fewer men wear neckties or formal or sports jackets. Why not be more unusual, plus get out of cutting the grass at the same time? We bought $400 worth of natural grasses and flower seeds from Prairie Nursery in Westfield, WI. We followed their instructions and had the ground turned over. We handcast the seeds over the area.
Over the next year or so, we got big blue stem, spiderwort, golden rod, and many lovely and interesting plants. They grew to about 2 or 3 feet. Very natural. Then, I began to hear about invasive species. I learned that hoary alyssum and other plants were faster, stronger, hardier than our precious cache.
Lynn is a plant lover and a fighter. She quickly learned to spot the invaders and spent hot days in the sun and bugs, pulling out armloads of the nasties trying to strangle our lovelies. That was in 1993.
Over time, we heard from people experienced in natural and prairie lawns that the toughest opponent was the one we planted ourselves right next to our prairie patches, lawn grass. We learned that the grass is relentless in its campaign to creep into adjacent areas and take them over. One experienced farmer told Lynn that 40 acres were needed to make a natural area big enough to defend itself. Our whole lot is half an acre and the prairie area is about 1/3 of that.
We learned that toddlers can’t manage plants that are 2 and 3 feet tall, nor the bugs that may live among them. We have delicious great grandkids and we don’t want ticks or the Lyme disease germs anywhere near them.
We knew from the start that the prairie did best if it was burned over annually. We burned it twice but the second time, doing it on our own without expert help, we managed to melt some of the siding on our house.
We still have some lovely spiderwort and some impressive golden rod but the grass has left very little. For the last four years or so, we have had a strong riding mower instead of just a push job and it cuts the remaining prairie annually with no trouble. It cuts the expanding lawn area quickly and neatly and it’s fun to use. We have decided that good old grass is our friend and the safest, hardiest and most useful lawn cover after all.
