Beebe Cline, White Rock Realtor

There’s been a move away from lawns in residential landscapes, particularly traditional manicured grass, as the focus has been shifting to outdoor spaces that are more attractive to wildlife and require less water and resources. Many of us, though, have exactly this kind of centerpiece in our yards. So what are the options for working with what you’ve got to make your green patch friendlier to nature, as well as part of a space you can enjoy looking at and spending time in? Experts share their tips.

Limit Mowing

The No Mow May initiative has put the idea of longer grass into the public consciousness — but don’t confine the idea to just one month.

“This is something anyone can do,” says Theo Charnley of Wilder Landscapes, a designer and builder of naturalistic, low-impact landscapes. “Just leave your lawn for a while and see what happens. Long grass will appear, which will add height and movement to your once-static lawn. Flowers will bloom that you didn’t know were there, and all of this will provide habitat and food for wildlife.”

Charnley has tips for making your lawn look good too, rather than neglected. “It’s important to stay on top of occasional weeding,” he says. “For example, dandelions are fantastic wildflowers — bees love them, and the flowers, leaves and roots all have value from a foraging perspective — but if left for too long, they can self-sow like crazy and take over a lawn. So I will weed out some and leave some until I’m left with a balance I’m happy with.”

Mow Strategically

If you prefer to have some mown grass, consider cutting certain areas and leaving others to grow. “If we’re to encourage more people to have a wild lawn, the garden has to appeal to the human occupants too,” Sam Plant of Plantology says.

Plant has a top tip for making a “wild” lawn practical, usable and nice to look at: Mow pathways through longer grasses or focus on the borders. “Having a defined, tidy edge can make a huge impact. It brings focus to the wild lawn and highlights that it’s an intentional feature rather than [its] looking out of control,” he says.

“In long, narrow [yards], for example, we’ve left a single strip of lawn to one side to go wild, which can look more purposeful,” he continues. “The same idea can be applied to hard-landscaped pathways and is increasingly seen in parks and public gardens.” The photo here, of one of Plant’s projects, shows how such a design can look.

Having a variety of grass heights is also a good approach from a biodiversity perspective. “Mowing some parts and leaving others will create different habitats for different species,” Charnley says.

Go for an In-Between Height

Allowing a lawn to grow can be good for attracting wildlife, but it’s easy to get cold feet when it begins to look untidy, which can be considered worse. “So people then mow the lawn, which destroys the habitats it created,” Plant says.

His compromise? Instead of letting your existing lawn grow until you can’t bear it anymore, change tack. “Scarify and oversow a short flowering lawn mix, and then raise the mower to max height and keep the grass at this midheight — long enough to leave the flowers for bees and insects, yet short enough that it doesn’t invite nesting mammals,” he says.

Encourage Flowers

Including flowers in your grass will entice pollinators, but what will work in a lawn environment?

“There are lots of species that can be mown frequently but still flower and are fantastic for bees and butterflies as well as humans,” Charnley says. “Clover, bird’s-foot trefoil, wild thyme, lawn chamomile and wild marjoram are all good options and can be bought on their own or as part of a seed mix and added to your lawn.”

Plant suggests enhancing taller patches of grass with flowers. “You can plant spring bulbs,” such as crocuses, he says, “which look great early in the year, and taller daffodils and Camassia, which flower later and look great grown in the long grass.”

He adds, “This is also a much less intensive method of providing pollen and color to your wild lawn, as it only involves planting a few bulbs into the existing grass in the autumn. You’ll want to mow the lawn early in the year before the bulbs emerge, and then leave it for them to flower.”

Water Less

The amount of water required to maintain the traditional manicured lawn is a big factor in the move toward a wilder approach. So what’s the best way to combine having a lawn with saving water? Plant suggests increasing your mower height. “This can create thicker swards, which trap morning dew and reduce evaporation,” he says.

And “for those who do wish to keep a traditionally shorter lawn, using specific drought-tolerant grass mixes containing microclover — or oversowing with microclover — can make lawns healthier and more drought-tolerant,” he says. “They also look greener, even when the grass is suffering.”

Fescue is another example of a lawn-suitable grass that can tolerate dry conditions, and as a general rule, native seeds and plants typically require less water. A landscape pro will have more suggestions.

Staying on top of lawn maintenance is also vital. “Generally, keeping the soil healthy will create a more resilient lawn,” Plant says. “Unhealthy or hydrophobic lawns [meaning the soil repels rather than absorbs water] will be more vulnerable to drought. Spring and autumn care — scarifying, aeration, top-dressing and so on — contribute to a healthy lawn.

“The use of organic wetting agents can reverse hydrophobia on lawns, which means water will go much further and reduce the need for artificial watering,” he adds, “though be careful, as some of these are petrochemical-based.”

Choose Your Grass Type Wisely

Flowers aren’t the only additions to consider. Even established lawns can get a remix that will result in the sort of grass that is friendly to bugs and other garden creatures as well as needs less water.

“Improving your existing lawn involves selective weeding to control things that take over, and then adding more of what you want,” Charnley says. For the lawn in the yard shown here, which he worked on with Beth King of Wild Yards, the focus was on planting for pollinators and the changing climate, and a species-rich lawn turf was laid. “It contains 26 species and a mix of shade-tolerant grasses, including common meadow grass and slender creeping red fescue. It’s important to pick a suitable mix or turf for your environment — have a look at the species included and speak to the supplier if you have any questions,” Charnley says.

“The challenge here is stopping the preexisting grass from outcompeting anything new that needs light, water and nutrients to establish,” he continues. “This is done by sowing and mowing at the right times to give new plants the best chance.” Follow the instructions from your supplier or ask a landscape pro to step in.

Rewild a Patch

Rewilding, or letting nature take care of itself, comes up a lot in conversations about naturalistic landscaping in relation to large areas of land, but can it be done on a domestic scale?

Yes, our experts say, and they suggest a few routes you can take. “The easy way to add more interest and species to your lawn is to inject plugs of endemic wild plants,” says landscape designer Melanie Hick. “Check the local meadow plants for your area, buy small plugs of these and plant them one by one.”

It’s important to be aware that this is very different from simply tinkering with the lawn you have. It generally will require replacing the areas of grass you want to change. But Plant says that if you can commit to the preparation required, you could turn an area of your lawn into a wildflower meadow.

“It requires quite intensive preparation before you can start to sow the seeds,” he says. “It’s best to rotovate [break up the surface of] the whole lawn or lift the turf completely.” Simply scarifying the surface and seeding over an existing lawn won’t work. “The seedlings will be outcompeted too quickly to establish,” he says.

“The grasses in a native wildflower mix also differ from a traditional lawn, as they’re clump-forming and generally have more attractive seed heads,” he says, “whereas traditional lawns tend to [consist of] runner species, which spread across the ground, hence being more appropriate for mowing.”

Plant suggests seeking out flowering lawn seed mixtures, which contain a variety of native grasses and flowers. “These will look more attractive when left to grow tall, and will be more beneficial to wildlife than leaving a regular lawn to grow,” he says.

He explains the difference between a perennial meadow and an annual one. “Sowing a perennial meadow requires quite a bit of maintenance to get started, and you’ll need to remove unwanted or more aggressive weeds in the first year for a more successful meadow,” he says. “This is because a perennial mix will flower in the second year and be slower to establish than an annual meadow mix.

“Annual meadow mixes are pure flowers and will not contain grasses, but will germinate rapidly and flower in the first year,” he continues. “An annual meadow mix, however, will have to be reseeded annually for the full effect, as the self-seeding won’t result in as impressive a display the following year.”

Embrace Imperfection

Do you panic at the idea of the summer sun scorching your previously lush, emerald square? Adjust your mindset, Hick advises.

“Let your lawn yellow and ‘die,’” she says. “Even as the blades yellow-off in the heat, the roots of your lawn will live through the summer and make a comeback in autumn. We could all do with getting used to what the reality of hot, dry summers looks like. It’s just not sustainable to keep every lawn looking like the green fields of lush, well-hydrated landscapes.”

Have Less Lawn

Another approach for minimizing the impact of high-maintenance grass is simply to have less of it. “Reduce the area of your lawn to increase biodiversity,” Hick suggests. “By limiting the space you allocate to lawn and increasing your borders, you could gain more planting, and therefore more beauty and interest.”