JUNE 2025 GARDEN TIPS
Lawns
LAWNS! We water and fertilize them. And worry about “weeds”. And then the odd part is, if the lawn starts growing, we mow and cut it down to size. And when we do that, it restricts the plant’s ability to produce a good root system because there’s always going to be some balance between the amount of foliage and the amount of root space. And if you’ve got a nice deep root system, the plant can take care of itself. But with our constant mowing, a lawn always needs more watering and fertilizing to keep them going.
The information below is from attending Doug Tallamy's lectures and reading his books, which are filled with eye-opening, fascinating information, common sense, and are loaded with beautiful photography. Lawns cover 40 million acres in the US. That’s a larger area than all of New England.
In 2021, Doug W. Tallamy and Michelle Alfandari started Homegrown National Park.org. She was not a conservationist or gardener but a businesswoman from New York City. She went with a friend and heard Doug speak. It motivated her, and she thought it could motivate MANY. She asked if he was interested in
scaling his message. If everyone plants just even a small native garden, you will be helping increase biodiversity and promoting the conservation of the world. The hope is to garner millions of people to help save biodiversity and mitigate climate change. We have a serious decline in plants, insects, and birds. Need the first 2 to have the 3rd! The problem is non native plants don’t support the chain in a meaningful way. Choose plants that benefit the most species. Just reducing your lawn with a small garden of native plants or planting a tree or shrub with native plants underneath it is a great start! There are many trees to choose from. It is best to plant a small tree! Many trees grow faster than you think, and do not grow hundreds of feet tall. The ones that take hundreds of years.
Doug Tallamy is the author of
- Bringing Nature Home
- Nature’s Best Hope
- The Nature of Oaks
- How Can I Help? Saving Nature with your Yard. 499 Questions and Answers to Help You Take the Next Steps.
He has been a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology for 44 years at the University of Delaware. He is the recipient of several awards and much acclaim for his teachings.
Lawns are pretty much an ecological dead zone. He chooses plants that host the most caterpillar species, support the most specialist pollinators, remove the most carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and protect our watershed the best (large root systems).
Check out homegrownnationalpark.org if you haven’t done so already. Attend his free lectures when you have an opportunity and pick up his books. Share what you learn and set an example in your own yard ?
I do know that the caterpillars that feed on the species in my yard do not kill or ruin the plants. It is a nice balance with birds around to eat them and to feed their chicks!
