A Quest for a Perfect Lawn: a Case Study

This graphic makes the point about how
out-of-step people are for trying to
maintain unnatural&unsustainable lawns.

To celebrate Earth Day, this post is about rethinking the "perfect" lawns, which are maintained with applications of fungicides, insecticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, and never allowed to go into seasonal dormancy. In Florida winter-dormant grasses are over-seeded with cool-weather grasses, irrigated through the dry season, & fertilized. 

Today's lawn expectations go way back to how European formal gardens & lawns around castles and manor houses were kept to show others how wealthy the owners were.

Today, lawn-"care" organizations can make lots of money by encouraging homeowners to have "perfect" lawns, but does it make sense or cents? As a botanist, naturalist, and a sustainable gardener, I would say, "NO!" 

There are so many reasons for replacing most of your lawn acreage with unpoisoned native habitat & pollinator gardens and then freeing the remainder of your lawn from all pesticides & synthetic fertilizers, mowing it less often at the highest setting, letting it go dormant in the winter & allow a variety of plants that tolerate mowing to grow there.

The Birds are NOT OK

What is the birds-eye view of your yard
your community?

Birds Aren’t Just Declining.
They’re Declining Faster!

Scientists studying data collected for more than three decades found accelerating losses. The steepest losses in the study, from 1987 to 2021, were seen in Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Arizona. This research offers clues about the causes. Here are links to a gift article in the NY Times that looks at this research and to a WashingtonPost gift article, which both cite the same study.

This research showed a correlation with increased use of pesticides in agricultural regions, but it also linked back to an older study showing that cats cause huge harm to our birds. I wrote about that as well and how controversial this is in this article.

This Red-shouldered Hawk provided its
opinion on how humans treat birds.

BUT...

Whatever the causes for their decline, we are NOT helpless and, as Joan Baez stated, "Action is the antidote to despair."

There are many actions we can take to make our yards and our communities more bird friendly. I've covered this topic from several different angles over the years, so I've gathered some of the most relevant articles here to make it easier for people to up their game at this critical time. The birds need us to act now more than ever.

Southern arrowwood, a pollinator & bird-friendly, easy-to-grow shrub

The beautiful flower heads attract a wide array
of pollinators, including this yellow
tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus).

Southern arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum) should be planted more often. It’s a medium-sized shrub that attracts pollinators with its flowers and feeds birds with its blue berries in the fall. It's also the larval host for the spring azure butterfly (Celastrina ladon).  This is a wonderful choice to add habitat to your landscape. (See my article on habitat gardening.) 

It grows well in a variety of conditions, from full sun to partial shade, and a variety of soil types. It does best along pond edges and low areas, including rain gardens, but not where it’s really dry. It's low maintenance, once established, but it tolerates trimming.

It can be planted as part of a hedgerow or as part of a grove or thicket around trees with other native shrubs. It tends to sucker and spread by rhizome, so plan for this.

Coral honeysuckle creates habitat

The coral honeysuckle flowers are attractive
to us and to pollinaors, especially hummingbirds.

Coral honeysuckle, an easy-to-grow native for Florida and beyond.

Coral honeysuckle or scarlet honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is native to most of eastern North America from eastern Texas to Massachusetts, including all but the southernmost counties in Florida. It's in the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae.

It has opposite leaves along each stem, but the leaves that subtend the inflorescence (flower head) are joined together. This is known as perfoliate leaves. 

The long tubular flowers, which are borne only on new wood, are especially favored by hummingbirds, but butterflies, bees, and moths also visit the flowers. After pollination, fruits, which are true berries, develop and are an important food source for many birds, especially the Northern Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis). They also are the birds we seen most often nesting in the honeysuckle.