Kicking grass: Native plantings foster environmental health

Turf grass common to residential lawns promotes chemical use and supplemental watering, while offering no ecological value. Implications are far reaching, touching on groundwater and surface water quality, the pollinator crisis, and more. Converting lawn space to native plantings can help solve all of those problems, often with added benefits.

Native plants—especially those from the tallgrass prairie— require little to no watering to thrive. Their root systems reach deep into soils (some over 10 feet), which make them highly resistant to droughts. Placing them in the hottest, driest parts of a yard can reduce or even eliminate watering needs.

Because native plants have been present on the landscape for millennia, animal species utilize them heavily. Mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects use native plant communities across seasons and habitats for food and cover.

This is especially true for insects, many of which have suffered severe declines in population due to intensive farming, development, pesticides and other factors. Some have very specific plant needs for their life cycles.

One example is the Karner blue, a small butterfly classified as endangered in Minnesota. It requires habitats which include wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), the only plant Karner blue caterpillars eat. Due to overwhelming loss of those habitats, it is possible that only one site in the state still maintains a population of this rare species.

Monarch butterflies, which were classified as endangered last year by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, famously require milkweed for the production of their caterpillars. While there are several native milkweeds suitable for monarchs, they (and other butterflies) also need nectar-producing plants throughout the season. There are many such plants endemic to this region, including Meadow blazing star (Liatris ligulistylis), Stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida), Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and Purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea).

Monarch Joint Venture (MJV) is a national partnership network for monarch and pollinator conservation headquartered in St. Paul. Executive Director Wendy Caldwell says homeowners can make meaningful impacts on behalf of pollinators.  

“We embrace this research called ‘All Hands on Deck,’ which basically shows that to reach our monarch conservation goals—which can serve as a proxy for pollinator population goals—we need all hands on deck to get there. Getting homeowners to convert their lawn to more native plants, to pollinator habitat, certainly contributes to that collective goal of restoring pollinator populations.”

Caldwell says anything helps, and that discontinuing pesticides is critical: “With species like monarchs, more is always better. But monarchs use a lot of different kinds of habitat. No habitat is too small ... Remember, when you’re planting pollinator habitat, you’ll be attracting insects. So don’t use things that kill insects.”

Establishing a native garden can be done in a few simple steps:

1. Identify a site, preferably with good sun exposure.

2. Assess the soil in order to determine which plants will do well there.

3. Select plants that will bloom at different times, and from sellers that offer local genetic strains.

4. Keep plants watered for the first few weeks, and through any drought conditions in the first growing season.

An alternative to drier, prairie-like plantings is rain gardens. Designed to improve water quality by capturing runoff, they can replace grass in what is often the most parched portion of lawns: the boulevard. Native species adapted to moist soils are usually best, like Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium maculatum). By coupling a rain garden with other plantings, one can easily multiply the number of native plant species in one yard by a factor of two or more.

In preparing to convert turf grass to more beneficial vegetation, there are many good websites to consult, including Monarch Joint Venture and the Xerces Society, for information about things like how to kill existing grass without using herbicides.

Funds may also be available. Lawns to Legumes is a Minnesota cost-share program for establishing pollinator habitat. Ramsey County offers cost sharing and technical assistance for rain gardens and native plantings; consult its Soil & Water Conservation webpage for more information.

The Landscape Revival Native Plant Market and Expo will take place June 10 at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Shoreview. Consult bigriverbigwoods.org for details.

Roy Heilman is a contributing writer for Press Publications. He can be reached at news@presspubs.com or 651-407-1200.