Why you should kill your lawn

Green, grassy lawns are bad for the environment. They need a ton of water, they’re inhospitable to wildlife and gas-powered mowers contribute to greenhouse gases. Celia Llopis-Jepsen, host of Harvest Public Media’s Up From Dust podcast, shares how to turn your lawn into a low-maintenance native plant garden, lessening your environmental impact while still keeping your yard pleasing to the eye. Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekit https://www.instagram.com/nprlifekit/?hl=en Sign up for our newsletter here. https://www.npr.org/newsletter/life-kit Have an episode idea or feedback you want to share? Email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] Support the show and listen to it sponsor-free by signing up for Life Kit+ at plus.npr.org/lifekit http://plus.npr.org/lifekit See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:23Marielle Segarra?

  You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, it's Marielle. I grew up in a suburb of New York City, and our neighborhood was the definition of post-war development. Lots of houses in the same style, evenly spaced with bright green manicured lawns. And the lawns were good to us. My brother and I, we played barefoot in the sprinklers. We drove around in our little electric red Jeep. We tossed the ball to our dog, who was big and blonde and full of energy. What I'm saying is, grassy lawns, they have their appeal.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  But the reality is that we do, let's be honest, have a lot more lawn than we actually use. A lot of it is basically just kind of like for the look, right? It's kind of like aesthetic.

• 1:11Marielle Segarra?

  This is Celia Yopis-Jepsen, a science reporter at Harvest Public Media and the host of their environmental podcast, Up From Dust.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  If you add up all this manicured grass turf that we've got in the US at this point, it actually adds up to an area that's bigger than the state of Georgia.

• 1:30Marielle Segarra?

  Yeah, it's a lot of lawn. And it's a problem because the things we do to keep these lawns tidy and green tax our environment. We put down fertilizer and weed killer. We use our drinking water supplies to run sprinklers. We burn fossil fuels in our lawn mowers. What if we did things differently? NPR is dedicating this week to stories and conversations about how communities are moving forward on climate solutions despite the political roadblocks, especially at the federal level. One way people are doing that is by replacing their lawns with native plants. Because if you grow plants that are native to your area, you're not going to have to water them very often. Except during long, dry spells.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  And you certainly are not going to have to fertilize them. And you're obviously not going to be running a mower over gorgeous flowers.

• 2:18Marielle Segarra?

  Plus, you'll be helping the wildlife.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  And we know wildlife in our country, like, does need help. North America has lost a quarter of its birds. The US has lost, like, an estimated one-fifth of its butterflies at this point. So you can do a solid for the environment by ditching even just some of your lawn and replacing it with a wildlife-friendly garden.

• 2:43Marielle Segarra?

  The good news is you don't have to ditch your whole lawn to make a difference. In fact, the experts recommend that you start small. That's actually what my dad did in the yard of the house I grew up in. He started a native plant garden along the fence, and it is the best part of the space with its fluttering butterflies and massive sunflower stalks that reach toward the sky. On this episode of Life Kit, how to help the planet by starting a native plant garden. Celia's going to walk us through how to actually kill that patch of grass, where to find plants, and what to expect as your garden grows.

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• 4:37Marielle Segarra?

  Celia, can we walk through some of the fears or reservations that folks might have around this? I feel like a common one is, what are the neighbors going to think? Right? If I replace my manicured front lawn with a patch of wildflowers?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Those are really legit questions, right? I mean, first of all, lawn culture is real. Like, we love a tidy, green lawn. And I feel like for a lot of us, lawns feel like a safe way to keep property values up in our neighborhoods, right? Like, it's something, it's a look that we trust. But on the flip side, your neighbors may be like totally into attracting wildlife. And like, they may see our gardens and love it. Someone who knows a lot about this is Paula Diaz. She is a master gardener in Kansas City. She helps people turn their yards into wildlife spaces by adding native plant gardens.

• 5:27Speaker 06

  One of my neighbors, we were just talking, and she says, "Your yard is so full of life. That's it. It's the life. It's the, there's always a bird that's singing, or frogs that are croaking."

• 5:43Marielle Segarra?

  Like a Disney movie?

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know, right? Like, as far as I know, the birds don't actually come and land on Paula's hand when she calls them. But nevertheless, like, she's got a lot of birds and bees and frogs and things, which also her grandchildren love. But that neighbor, you know, who said that to her, like, started planting native plants, too. And so have several other of her neighbors.

• 6:05Marielle Segarra?

  Another fear I think folks might have is, what kind of wildlife is going to show up? Like, maybe I'm rolling out the red carpet for butterflies and birds, but I'm actually going to end up with ticks.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  I have talked to people who, who are feeling like, well, I want to do a native plant flower bed, but I don't really want, like, spiders to show up. Or I want to make sure, like, snakes won't be around. And it doesn't really work that way. So for some people... Getting into wildlife-friendly gardening like may mean also kind of working on some of our aversions to these things. These are ultimately beneficial animals. But I do want to get into ticks specifically, which no one likes ticks. Ticks are legitimately a very big concern because they can make us really sick. So the question is, like, if you ditch some lawn in favor of a flower bed, does that mean you're going to have

• 6:59Speaker 02

  more ticks around? And scientists are looking into that. So far, the research that I've seen, it suggests that flower gardens don't really increase ticks. The real factor here is if you're living basically where ticks want to live. Like, if you're living right at the edge of the woods, woods have a lot of ticks. They're going to crawl into your yard, whether it's lawn or flower beds.

• 7:23Marielle Segarra?

  Takeaway one, a native plant garden doesn't have to look overgrown. It can look pretty and intentional, something your neighbors will appreciate. Also, so far, the research suggests that gardens are no more likely than traditional lawns to attract ticks.

• 7:39Marielle Segarra?

  So let's say I am ready to get rid of some of my lawn. How might I start?

• 7:47Speaker 02

  The first great tip that I have from experts is like, maybe don't do the whole lawn. Like, people can get really enthusiastic about this, but like, just kill a bit of grass and make, make like one flower bed to start. So I talked to Stacia Stelk. She leads Deep Roots KC, which is a group that educates the public on how and why to ditch lawns for native plants. And she does not go around telling people like, hey, jump in there and do everything at once.

• 8:16Speaker 06

  It can be overwhelming to take on an expansive garden for any gardener, but especially for a first time or like, learning gardener. And as you, you know, get more, um, more comfortable with your existing garden, there's always room to expand.

• 8:32Marielle Segarra?

  Well, walk me through how you would kill a bit of grass to create one flower bed.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  First things first, like you gotta pick a spot, like where are you gonna kill some grass? And maybe you think it would look really nice to have a flower bed along the walkway to my front door, or along a fence, or I want to throw out like the idea of doing it around a tree. So like, maybe you've already got this nice oak tree in your yard and you could replace the grass around it with a flower bed. And that's like a legit thing. Like that approach is called a soft landing, because actually there's all these like butterfly caterpillars and things in the tree. And when they finish eating oak leaves, they're gonna come down and they're gonna look for a place to make their chrysalis and they need someplace safe away from lawn mowers and such. So you're creating a safe space

• 9:21Speaker 02

  for them. Once you've got your spot, you're going to like, go ahead and kill the grass. And that sounds intimidating, but there's actually lots of options. And some of them are easier than others, some like work faster than others. So, an easy approach is layer cardboard and mulch just right on top of that grass. Um, you're gonna cut off the sunlight, and so without sunlight, the grass is gonna die. It could take like six weeks or so, but it's gonna die. Another option is you could lay out black plastic on it. That blocks the light, it also blocks the rain. You can also like rent a sod cutter, or dig it out by shovel. Some people spray herbicide. Every approach is gonna have pros and cons. Obviously,

• 10:05Speaker 02

  digging it out with a shovel, you know, that's, that's fast. That's like instant gratification. It's also a lot of labor. It takes a lot of muscle that like I don't have. But, you know, putting down cardboard on it, that's easy. On the other hand, you're gonna have to wait longer till that grass is dead.

• 10:22Marielle Segarra?

  Takeaway two, time to kill some grass. First, you want to pick a spot. Remember, you don't have to do this all at once, and it's not all or nothing, anyway. Do you have a tree? How about a small patch underneath it to create a soft landing for caterpillars? Next to a fence is great, too, or along a walkway. Once you pick a spot, you have some options. You could layer cardboard and mulch to starve the grass of sunlight. You could also do that with black plastic tarp. Alternatively, you could use a sod cutter or dig the grass out with a shovel. That's much faster, but it takes more muscle. And the site of the garden does matter here. If you're working under a tree, for instance, you won't want to use a sod cutter because you could damage the tree roots. Coming up, what to do after you've killed your lawn.

• 11:12Speaker 03

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• 11:16Speaker 07

  This weekend up first, we're in the final days before the midterm elections. And this is one of the wonderful things about politics, one of the wonderful things about humanity. We have all this data. We have all this information. And nobody really knows what's going to happen. We're going to follow it day by day, through Election Day and beyond. And you can listen to Up First every morning on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Pelosi. Whether you love her-- One of the best speakers the House of Representatives have ever had. Or hate her-- That crazy Nancy, she is crazy. She's a force to be reckoned with. We're not letting anything stand in our way. From KQED, part of the NPR network, "The Speaker: How Nancy Pelosi Changed the Face of Power."

• 12:01Speaker 07

  Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

• 12:04Marielle Segarra?

  All right, so the grass is dead, R.I.P. Can I start planting?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Yes. Now you get to the fun part of designing the bed. You're going to pick the flowers, the bushes. You know, what do you want it to look like? This is when you're going to do some dreaming. Like, look out your window. You know, what do you imagine would be pretty to look out and see every day? You could go full on cottage core and do big drifts of-- Pastel colors, or maybe you want something that feels like a prairie and it's swaying in the wind and has tall grasses and bright cheerful sunflowers. It's kind of up to you. You could do like a woodland look so that you're walking in your yard, you feel like it's in the woods with an oak tree and like some short, pretty woodland flowers underneath it.

• 12:53Marielle Segarra?

  That sounds so nice.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, it can be an expression of who you are. And once you have that vision, then you'll also need some details like about the spot that you picked, right? So is it, is it in full sun? The, what's your soil like? Is it sandy? Is it like clay? Are you looking for tall plants or like really short ground covers? You're kind of like putting together a shopping list of like, like your specifications, I guess. Then you're going to go online and look for a native plant guide that's specific to your region. You're going to want native plants from your region because obviously like wildlife friendly plants are totally different if you're in Arizona versus New York, right? They're not the same plants.

• 13:33Marielle Segarra?

  And that's like the whole point, right?

• 13:36Speaker 02

  That is the whole point. You don't want to have to baby them, right? You want them to be kind of like adapted to where you live and also to the animals where you live, if that makes sense. So online, there are lots of great like native plant societies, wildlife groups that will be regional. They'll have cheat sheets, basically. Like here's the top 10 native flowers, you know, for the Midwest for a shade garden. Or they'll like just plain lay out flower beds. Like here's a 10 foot wide flower bed for this type of bed in the Southeast. And you can like steal a cheat sheet and use it, right? Make it a little easier for yourself. And then the other thing that's nice about those websites is that they'll probably also

• 14:18Speaker 02

  have a list of places where you can actually buy those plants, which sounds like, well, how hard could that be? But the reality is native plant gardening is still kind of niche in some places. Some regular nurseries will have some of these plants, but like the surefire way to find them is to get a list of the native plant nurseries in, in your city or your state.

• 14:42Marielle Segarra?

  Takeaway three, design your garden. What would you like to see out there swaying in the wind? What colors inspire you? Think about the spot where you're planting and what kind of sunlight it gets, what soil it has, and what native plants would thrive there. And if this is your front lawn, also consider any neighborhood rules that would apply here.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  When you're picking your plants, you should pay attention to whether, for example, do you have a homeowners association? Or are there like city codes that are particularly strict in your area? Like I met one person who a city coder made them rip the milkweed out of their front yard. So city rules can matter. There can be rules specifically against tall flowers in your front yard, or tall flowers within a certain number of feet of the curb, to make sure you're not like blocking view. Yeah, there can be rules like that that are worth paying attention to, definitely. But to be clear, you can garden in a way that's going to fit in in your neighborhood. So like if you live in a very manicured neighborhood and you want to fit in with that look, like you can do that.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Or if you want something that looks more naturalistic, because that's your style, like you can do that, too.

• 15:51Marielle Segarra?

  How expensive is all this?

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, buying lots of plants, that can add up really fast. So there are a few ways to save money. One good tip is that you can grow plants from seed. You can buy native plant seeds online, or from like a local native plant nursery. You can also look for nurseries that sell plugs, like just very small plants in six packs, or even in flats, instead of shelling out big bucks for mature plants. You can even, you know, sometimes that could be a wholesaler, for example, who's like mostly selling to landscape contractors, but who might also let you walk in and buy plugs by the flat at a better price than you're going to get like at a typical retail place.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  And then like I have a tip for potentially getting plants for free, and that is to look for native plant Facebook groups in your area. Because lots of gardeners swap or give away plants, because they'll plant something in their garden, it will grow, and a few years later, like it's maybe gone to seed and produced baby plants. And people are happy to swap or give away plants when they have extras. And then a final money tip on this is that nowadays, there are Quite a few cities and counties that have incentives for you to replace part of your lawn with native plants. So that can mean reimbursing you for

• 17:20Speaker 02

  part of the cost, and it's worth looking into that before you even start to see if there's something like that in your area.

• 17:27Marielle Segarra?

  Takeaway four, mature plants can be expensive. So to save money, you could grow plants from seed or look for nurseries that sell plugs, which are just very small plants. A hot tip is to look for a wholesaler who sells to landscape contractors, but is willing to let you buy plugs by the flat at wholesale prices. Also, look for native plant Facebook groups in your area, because a lot of folks give away plants for free, or they're willing to swap. And you might be able to get money from your city or your county for planting a native garden.

• 17:58Marielle Segarra?

  Well, how long is it going to take for the garden to actually look good?

• 18:03Speaker 02

  A common rule of thumb that gardeners like to use for any kind of flower gardening, really, is this idea of sleep, creep, leap. So three years, like that first year, you're not really seeing much happen. The plants are sleeping. The second year, they grow a little bit. It's like they're creeping. And then the third year, they're going to like really thrive and fill out and look great. So that's the leap year.

• 18:28Marielle Segarra?

  Celia, three years? Like, I'm looking for instant gratification.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Well, if you have a very deep bank account,

• 18:38Speaker 02

  a lot of magical things can happen, Ariel. But if you want to do it on the cheap, then I think patience goes a long way.

• 18:46Marielle Segarra?

  Okay, three years it is.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:50Marielle Segarra?

  And then what do you have to do from there? Like, what does maintenance look like?

• 18:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, it gets oft repeated that if you have a native plant garden, there's no maintenance. Here's Stacia again from Deeper It's KC.

• 19:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's not a thing. But it does require less maintenance over time. Honestly, even the first year, especially with the inconsistent rain cycles we've been having lately, thanks to climate change. Watering it the first couple of years is always a good idea, especially when we're in the middle of a drought or a really dry time of year and it's 110 degrees or whatever.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  So, yes, there is some maintenance. You're going to want to stay on top of watering and weeding that bed, especially while those plants are maturing. But it does get easier. The weeding gets easier over time when your plants get nice and big and fill out your flower bed. And then you're not going to end up having to water these plants much if you've like picked the right plants for your region and your site.

• 19:46Marielle Segarra?

  All right, so what if you don't have your own house? You're either renting the house or you live in an apartment and you don't have a yard where you can do this. But you still are interested in, you know, being more wildlife friendly, making more space for tiny creatures.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I mean, there are definitely things that you can still do. One cool option would be to look for like local volunteer opportunities to do things like plant or maintain wildlife gardens in the local road medians or pocket parks or city parks. Sometimes there's going to be like a local agency or a neighborhood group that needs lots of hands on deck to, you know, maybe weed these spaces, especially while they're getting established or to help remove invasive plants that are kind of getting in there and smothering the wildlife habitat. And, uh, you know, that's a fun way to also meet other people who are interested in what you're interested in. And then if you have any outdoor space,

• 20:50Speaker 02

  like maybe you have a patio or a balcony, you can grow native flowers in pots as well and attract bees and butterflies maybe to your patio that way and give them some nectar. So just because you're, you're maybe not able to like plant a larger space right now doesn't mean there aren't fun ways to get involved in doing a little something where you live for wildlife.

• 21:14Marielle Segarra?

  Celia, thank you so much for this.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Thank you. It's been fun.

• 21:18Marielle Segarra?

  Okay, time for a recap. Takeaway one: A native plant garden does not have to look overgrown. It can look pretty and intentional. Takeaway two: Time to kill some grass. Remember, you don't have to do this all at once, and it's not all or nothing. You could layer cardboard and mulch to starve the grass with sunlight. You could also do that with a black plastic tarp. Alternatively, you could use a sod cutter or dig the grass out with a shovel. That is much faster, but it takes more muscle. Takeaway three: Design your garden. What would you like to see out there? Think about the spot where you're planting and what kind of sunlight it gets, what soil it has, and what native plants would thrive there. Also, consider any neighborhood rules. Takeaway four: Some ways to save money.

• 22:02Marielle Segarra?

  Grow plants from seed, or look for nurseries that sell plugs, which are just very small plants. Also, look for landscaping wholesalers and follow the native plant Facebook groups in your area, because a lot of folks give away plants for free or they're willing to swap. All right, that's our show. Just a reminder that you can sign up for Life Kit Plus to support our work at NPR and to get curated playlists on popular Life Kit topics. Start listening today at plus.npr.org/lifekit. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. It was edited by Shayla Farzan and Neela Banerjee. Our digital editor is Malika Gharib, and our visuals editor is CJ Riechel. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor,

• 22:46Marielle Segarra?

  and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Margaret Serino and Claire Marie Schneider. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado. Engineering support from Nisha Hyness. I'm Marielle Segarra. Thanks for listening, and happy planting.

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• 23:44Speaker 05

  Pelosi. Whether you love her—

• 23:46Speaker 07

  One of the best speakers the House of Representatives have ever had.

• 23:50Speaker 05

  Or hate her—

• 23:51Speaker 07

  That crazy Nancy. She is crazy.

• 23:53Speaker 05

  She's a force to be reckoned with.

• 23:55Speaker 04

  We're not letting anything stand in our way.

• 23:58Speaker 05

  From KQED, part of the NPR network, The Speaker: How Nancy Pelosi Changed the Face of Power. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.