I learned a lot from bees this week.
When we first bought our house in March 2022, the grass was a beautiful, uniform green color. The woman who used to own our house lives right next door (it used to be one plot of land that was divided after we bought our house). Her grass was also the beautiful, uniform green color. Eventually, in our yard in summer of 2022 the thistles came up, and despite Stefanie @ A Stone in the River and her vegan enthusiasm, I was not planning on eating the thistles. Right near our house in the front is a flower garden, and I went through and pulled up anything leafy that did not look like a flower to give the space a nice, clean look. I kept pulling and pulling and pulling. The neighbor’s lawn remained a beautiful, uniform green color.
In 2023, moles invaded the yard, likely because the field behind our house had soy beans that year. At one point, we saw this rodent-like thing toddling across the lawn only to quickly Google and learn that baby moles sometimes get above ground and get lost. I wanted to very gently yeet the baby mole off the lawn, but Nick has an even squishier heart than mine, so we did not. There were more thistles, and Nick went around to pull them up with a special tool, but eventually stopped. It’s like pulling them made them angry and want to come back with a vengeance. I was back in the front garden, pulling, pulling, pulling.
Here we are in 2024, and come spring I actually saw the lawn treatment truck pull in my neighbor’s yard. It had never occurred to me that a manicured yard requires chemicals. A few weeks later, I couldn’t help but notice that she had the beautiful, uniform green lawn while ours had weeds and was splotchy. In fact, it looked wild. I also did not go out and pull all the leafy things I did not recognize from the flower garden. I just didn’t have it in me. The last two summers we bought baskets of flowers and watered them the little garden nightly. It was a challenge to not overwater the baskets and keep an eye on how hot the sun was, to check if the flowers were basically get cooked in the extreme heat, etc. I bemoaned travelling for a weekend because the baskets of flowers would die.
In 2024, we did not buy the flower baskets. As spring and now summer has progressed this year, all sorts of wild things grew in that unweeded flower bed and our lawn. Those leafy weeds I had been yanking grew into violets. The hollowed out lilac tree I was going to cut down housed a bird and her babies. The lilies bloomed about a month before they usually do (perhaps they were getting too much water?). Bees. So many fat, lazy, bouncy bees are floating around. I saw a butterfly. And two nights in a row, Nick and I stood in the yard for a good deal of time as the sun set and hundreds of fireflies lit up our field (I believe the farmer planted soy beans again). Nick made a birdfeeder out of an old coffee can that I’m going to hang on a shepherd’s hook outside Kitty’s window.
I shared a photo of Toadman’s return, and all felt right with the world when I found him next to his furniture. I also found a baby toad in the front lawn and an even teenier toad outside a library:
The reason my Sunday Lowdown is coming later in the day is we are up north visiting Biscuit and Dad. I told Dad about looking at the neighbor’s perfect lawn, about our hodge podge space, and about the bees, fireflies, and other animals I had seen. He replied, “Sounds like you have the welcoming lawn.” We spend so much time fighting off what we don’t want and trying to coax what we do want that we fail to realize the battle is unwelcoming in general.
After a weekend full of family, I’m starting to think how this same concept may apply to people, too. Perhaps there is trying too hard to make a relationship grow that doesn’t want to grow. It’s possible that someone plucking out those they don’t like from their family will yield wilting and limp or dry and burnt results. What if some people bloom in their own time and don’t want your help, because they have their own schedule and way of doing things? Maybe some people seem “useless” and hollow, like that lilac tree, but house lots of love? How about we grow best when we are welcoming, sharing the benefits and beauty of living sympatico?
Grab the Lapels 
I love this idea, that what some people might call neglect is actually welcoming. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it, when my kids were young I changed our will to give custody of them to our friends because in my brother’s family they messed with the kids too much and I knew our friends would give them the kind of benign neglect they needed. Our yard is also welcoming and we have fireflies!
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I used to be a very competitive, judgmental person. Not competitive in sports, but more like winning at life. If someone couldn’t do something, they were a huge loser to me who couldn’t get their shit together, and I looked down on them. Now I’m seeing I am surrounded by people I might have viewed like weeds in the past only to see the small things they contribute that matter a good deal.
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I love what your dad said, that your lawn is the welcoming one! It is also my goal one day to have such a welcoming and wild (in my case) garden, so that all sorts of birds and insects can live and feed off the flowers!
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It was a strangely poetic thing for the fella to say. Thanks, Dad! I want to “un-yard,” I think they call it, where you purposely pull out grass and create a pollinator area. I used to go to a college that did what I’m thinking. It looks like this: https://www.goshen.edu/sustainability/native-prairie-project/
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I love what your Dad said too.
We gave up on having a beautiful lawn when we realised that it required too much work, chemicals and water (order interchangeable in terms of significance) so in the end we pulled it all out, and re-landscaped with plants suited to our environment, mulch and rocks. The rocks had a few purposes – a couple of big ones were to stop people driving onto our lawn (seriously) when turning around in the street, all were for aesthetics, but for me they were also for the critters. Lizards/skinks love sunning themselves on the rocks, and we did get more of them in the garden. The birds loved the plants and the mulched ground and the bird bath. I loved what we did, and enjoyed managing it because I didn’t need chemicals or a lot of water.
I do love your thoughts about just being welcoming. It doesn’t always work, but I absolutely agree that it is the place to start.
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I hadn’t thought about how important rocks might be, but you are right, not only for the things living on them, but the things under them, too! I never understood why people did not want their lawn to match the environment. I’m baffled when I read about the water that goes into keeping homes in the desert looking like they’re in the midwest. Drought-resistant plants is all they need, and that kind of landscaping is beautiful.
I guess being welcoming, to me, means being like that lawn that isn’t influence by outside things, made up to be something it’s not. Not everything will grow in that space, but more plants, even the ones you do not expect, will.
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Nice analogy … almost a metaphor!
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What a beautiful analogy! I’m so glad your lawn is a welcoming one. Mine is too and it makes me happy to see all kinds of insects – so far no frogs, it that would be cool! On our walk last night we saw a man walking around spraying chemicals in his yard and we both were like, “What’s the point? Why do people want pristine grass?” We don’t get it. With my front raised beds I’m trying to get rid of as much grass as possible. Anyway, this was a great post! Love seeing the little frogs!
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Once I start making money instead of spending all the money on tuition, I would like to hire this local botanist to come un-lawn our house and plant wild flowers. I want to be a pollinator destination.
The thing with grass is extra cringey when it comes to HOAs. If your lawn isn’t pristine, they can evict you. Not only that, but some HOAs require a specific breed or two of grass only, so if you plant the wrong stuff, you can be evicted.
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And that’s one reason I’d never live in an HOA neighborhood! LOL
YASSSSS to your goals for pollinators!!
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I love this so much! I still think you should eat the weeds, they are delicious and nutritious! But so awesome you have critters. I am certain the grass of your chem lawn neighbor, while pretty and green, supports zero life. Perhaps you will soon start getting rid of your lawn and planting native plants and even have a little pond one day! You’d have so many critters then!
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I don’t know that I would do a pond because stagnant water encourages mosquitoes, but my end goal is to un-lawn the place. I used to go to college here, and this would be my goal, what they call the Native Prairie Project: https://www.goshen.edu/sustainability/native-prairie-project/
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Love it!!!! If you need a place to get seeds and/or plant starts, Prairie Restorations is a great resource https://www.prairieresto.com/ As a Minnesotan in the land of 10,000 lakes and mosquitoes so big we joke that they are the state bird, I understand about the pond. There are things you can do though if you really want one, takes extra work though, so I completely get not wanting to take that on either!
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I love that your garden is a welcoming one! Maintaining a lawn here doesn’t really take so much effort, because (most years) we get rain throughout the summer so it stays green and lush – it’s just a case of mowing semi-regularly. There is a thing in the past few years that a lot of my neighbours participate in called No Mow May, where all the wildflowers and weeds are allowed to grow all month – I think it’s the month that’s most important for pollinators and that’s why they’ve gone for May. The council leaves a lot of the verges wild near me as well, in order to encourage wildlife – the one just behind my flat is full of buttercups, ox-eye daisies, cow parsley, and thistles. This year someone’s sweet peas even self-seeded into the verge, so we had about a month of bright pink flowers!
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My understanding is that No Mow May is so your grass goes to seed and basically re-plants itself. A lot of people don’t do it because it “looks bad” and when you do mow, you have big piles of grass left behind. I don’t think I’ve ever asked you what your space looks like because we don’t really buy apartments in the U.S.. Well, in Sex and The City Carrie did, but I still don’t understand that. Or rent controlled, whatever that is. All I remember about your home is that there is a door between the kitchen and the rest of the house because that is how cooking and baking don’t heat the whole place up, and that kitchen doors and no A/C are common in the UK. Do you mow?
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I don’t have a garden – I’m several floors up. I have a few pots on the balcony, so there’s nothing for me to mow! But I have honeysuckle and clematis and jasmine all growing up the walls on the balcony, and a lovely white rose that I bought fairly recently.
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In Perth you either water your lawn or you have a Sahara of flowing white sand (and a few tufts of yellow grass). A very good reason for having a native garden (except the kids have to have somewhere to play – the streets aren’t so welcoming these days).
After first year uni I worked on a dairy farm. Between morning and evening milking it was my job to work my way around the 90 acres with a hoe, uprooting thistles. A neverending job with spores blowing in constantly from the neighbours and roadsides.
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Interestingly, if your yard is a giant sand box, you may have the best yard for children. Instead, in the U.S., we water the lawn and then buy a plastic sandbox shaped like a turtle (these are ubiquitous) or use an old tractor tire and dump sand in it.
I cannot imagine 90 acres of those rotten thistles. They stab me through me gardening gloves. I guess now I will consider the mortician and the thistle digger the two jobs that never face scarcity.
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I personally despise perfect green lawns. They are a waste of time and natural resources! Obviously spraying chemicals on your lawn is bad for the environment, but what a useless thing to try to maintain; it just seems pointless. Here in Calgary we are under a strict outdoor water restriction b/c of a watermain break, so people haven’t been allowed to water their lawns or flowers at all. But outdoor water restrictions are common when it gets hot and hasn’t rained in awhile, so we ripped up all the grass in our front yard and put in a perennial garden bed with drought resistant plants. It’s been super easy to maintain, looks great, and the bees love it. Win win!
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Anne, I totally want a photo! I know you don’t write personal posts on your blog, so maybe you can email me one and tell me a little about what it means to “rip up all the grass.” It sounds intense but I want to be inspired.
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I’ll email you one!
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This is a lovely post! Perhaps because we let our yard grow pretty wild and while it’s mostly because we’re not very dedicated gardeners, I also enjoy seeing what pops up when I leave things alone!
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Thank you, Karissa. I’m hoping to un-yard my yard as soon as I can. It sounds like you and Anne, also from Canada, both have more “wild” yards than the uniform grass situation.
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I wonder if that’s a Canadian thing or a parents of young kids who’d rather be reading thing??
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