We replaced about 60-70% of our backyard with native plants, trees, and shrubs. It was a shit ton of work but I saw a hummingbird for the first time in my life! And moths mimicking hummingbirds. And friendly bees. And weird beetles. And other birds galore. I rarely have to water.

Now our preschooler has room to roam and so so much to explore (and weird bugs to chase mom around with).

Aesthetically pleasing my ass.

It's not even aesthetically pleasing.

There's a guy on youtube that talks about bringing back native plants to an area and all the benefits that come with it.

He usually just does a controlled burn and comes back a while later and it's back to native plants. Dude has a lot of cool knowledge but it's funny to me the format is basically explain-burn-check back later.

Down with monoculture! Down with monoculture!

My husband and I tried so hard to just let our lawn be what it wanted to be. All the clover, dandelions, wild strawberry, wild onion and ginger absolutely took over. In the back, it's completely fine. We get a lot of brown spots and mud during winter when it dies back, but come spring it's back to thriving. In our front yard though, enough of it died back that a heavy rain washed a lot of our yard into our driveway. We tried to manage it for a year before giving in.

So now, our front yard is an ugly but pristine monoculture grass hellscape. The back though is much larger, and still full of the awesome native plant goodness. I know nature is thriving back there because I pretty much cannot use my yard during summer due to the insane amount of bugs. There is a thriving ecosystem with all sorts of wildlife, from bunnies, squirrels and chipmunks to cardinals, robins and owls. Occasionally even a stray fox or mallard can be seen around the creek. And I live in the suburbs of a major metro area, and can hear I-35 from my house. It really is quite remarkable how natural ecosystems can thrive with just a tiny bit of encouragement.

I might have anger issues because any time someone tells me to touch grass I want to just violently make them eat the said touching grass.

Fun fact, naturally growing grass in Midwest is generally of the phalaris species, you can extract a very powerful hallucinogenic drug called DMT from it in three very simple steps. All you need is a lawnmower with a mulch bag and some pool cleaning supplies.

Unpopular opinion: I like my pure grass lawn and work hard to keep it nice with clean edges, no weeds, and comfortable barefoot walking. My flower garden I also work to keep nice in between plants. The vegetable garden is the same deal. The back of the property can grow whatever it wants. I have less than 1/4 acre and if I can have it all so can you.

You will never convince me that a lot with a house that is overgrown to shit looks nice. We can have both.

I see all this about grass not being native, but to where? It must be native somewhere.

Kill your lawn

Just scalp it and you have more native weeds than you want

Aesthetically pleasing like a blank canvas, a bare concrete wall, a block of clay, an empty manuscript: Brimming with potential to become something.

No mow summer

I hope the city has figured out by now I'm not cutting my "weeds". Gave me shit last year. The ordinance is so vague and allows the city to just go onto your property and cut everything down and bill you for the time. I fucking dare them.

aesthetically pleasing

it's literally 1 single species of grass fertilized till it looks nintendo64 green

I don't know where you live but where I'm at you will be eaten alive unless you are literally wet with deet spray(in areas that have all native plants and grasses). I don't mind visiting but as far as my backyard, I'll pass.

Oh, you didn't need to do that. You won't find a study supporting your argument, I've looked thoroughly before. Case in point, the study you shared. It actually opposes your argument, by finding suburban lawns support a diverse and abundant bee community. Of the three mowing frequencies they studied (one, two, and three week intervals), they actually found every two weeks was optimal for the bees.

Like I said to begin with, I just don't think what species of green you plant in your lawn matters nearly as much as not using insecticide.

Saw a man watering his yard the other day omw home from work. I drive through a ridiculously bougie area on my commute and see so much weird and out of touch shit