Converting a Lawn to Flawn- A Flowering Lawn

Do you want to mow your lawn less, plus provide nectar sources for pollinators and reduce your environmental imprint? Then, change your lawn to a ‘flawn’!

Reducing or Eliminating Your Lawn

Turf grass lawns are an American tradition. Everyone who has any kind of yard or property aspires to having a perfect green manicured carpet. But as we now know, grass can be a dead zone for native insects and birds, devoid of any nutrition or habitat for native species. Mowing, watering, fertilizing, and pest controls applied to turf, all impact the environment negatively. And more people want alternatives and to create more biodiversity around their property.

Many clients of mine want to get rid of their lawn and ask me as a garden designer what to plant in its place. Becoming more environmentally friendly and reducing maintenance are usually the goals. I always respond that any garden plants that they install in place of a lawn will most certainly be more maintenance. All perennials and shrubs need attention, either with pruning, cutbacks, and weeding and mulching. Weeding is the biggie. You wouldn’t be out weeding a lawn, but you need to keep a planting bed free of weeds, plus the expense of mulching yearly can add up. It is an unequal tradeoff and most people are surprised when I mention that.

The solution is to convert their existing lawn to a flower lawn or ‘flawn’, which is simply what many people would describe as a ‘weedy’ lawn. This means encouraging other pollinator friendly plants to take hold in your existing lawn and stop fertilizing and any other lawn treatments. This solution provides you with the look of a green lawn but will have flowering plants intermixed into the turf.

And you may think that a full-fledged meadow would be the answer, but installing a meadow and maintaining it can be more labor intensive than people think. Go to my post Meadow 101 – Installing and Maintaining a Beautiful Meadow to see all the steps involved.

Why have a Bee Lawn?

• Bee lawns have flowers mixed in with various types of turf grasses
• The flowers of a bee lawn provide nectar and pollen for pollinators, creating a living mosaic of about half grass and half wildflowers
• Bee lawns are environmentally friendly because they use no fertilizer and pesticides
• Bee lawns can still be used just like a regular lawn with lots of foot traffic
• A bee lawn can attract over 60 species of native bees, including many endangered ones

Instead of a pristine green sward, you end up with a more textured turf that has color, fragrance, and movement. Lawn seed mixes have been developed by several companies that I recommend – American Meadows  and Flawn.

The University of Minnesota also has a great list of other providers of seed and plants that you can add to your lawn. Most mixes consist of Dutch White Clover (Trifolium repens), Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris), and Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum), among others, that once incorporated into your lawn grasses can make your lawn much more hospitable for wildlife.

With an assortment of other low growing wildflowers, all blooming at 3-20″ tall, an established bee lawn won’t take up as many resources because you don’t have to fertilize and water. You still have to mow, but much less frequently. A bee lawn isn’t as valuable as a fully planted landscape with native shrubs and perennials, but can be part of your tool box in providing complete habitat suited to bees. Lawns are still great additions to our landscapes, but why not make it more bee friendly?

American Meadows’ Alternative Lawn Wildflower Seed Mix mix contains 13 plant varieties which include: 6 annual wildflowers, including Poppy and Sweet Alyssum,  that will bring pops of color just weeks after planting; 5 perennial wildflowers, including Daisies and Creeping Thyme, will appear in the second season and provide color for many years to come; Perennial Clover sends deep roots into the ground, conditions soil, suppresses weeds, and nourishes bumblebees and honeybees. The wildflowers are between 3″ and 20″ in height.

Top 3 Flowers To Add To Your Lawn

White Clover is not a native and is commonly thought of as a weed and lawn purists are always trying to get rid of it. Tolerant of shade and considered a legume which has a huge benefit to your lawn – it fixes its own nitrogen. That means it can add Nitrogen to the soil which actually fertilizes it. Plus, clover resists browning out from pet urine! And it suppresses other weeds. That sold it for me.

Self-Heal or Prunella, is a native and grows in sun or part shade and has a long bloom time, from June to August. And the purple flower really adds some color to the lawn. Used medicinally for centuries, prunella is a member of the mint family and can spread vigorously like mints which makes it suited for lawns.

Creeping Thyme is a non-native with small pink flowers that provides pollinators with nectar.

Others To Try

You may already have some of these present in your lawn, and they are easy to introduce.

Roman Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis) is often seen in lawns in England, but is quite happy here in the U.S too. A ferny foliage plant with white daisy-like flowers, I grew it initially in my herb garden and it jumped to my lawn. It can grow up to 20″ tall.

Common Violets (Viola sororia) which are natives and host plants to some fritillary butterflies. Bees are always buzzing around my violets. I don’t mind them in the lawn, but banish them from my planting beds.

Dandelions are another candidate for a bee lawn. Though non-native, I spot dandelions blooming all year long, even in the winter when pollinator forage is scarce to non-existent.

Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea) can be a pesky and vigorous weed almost impossible to eradicate. But why bother? Bees love the early blooming flowers.

Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophilia menziesii), a tiny little blue flower, appears early in the spring. It is an annual and will come up when you plant it during the winter or early spring, and reseed for next year.

Pick Low Growing Flowers

Not every wildflower adapts to being mowed short and stepped on, so you need to select your varieties carefully. They must be low-growing and flower at very low heights and be tolerant of foot traffic. Plus they need to be attractive to bees, compete with other turf grasses for space. And maybe you already have a bee lawn! If you have various flowering weeds presently growing in your lawn, avoid using weed killer applications.

How To Plant

I have seen mixes available at garden centers and on line or you can customize your own by buying seeds separately for each species and mixing them. Flawn makes specific mixes for over seeding into your lawn.  It is certainly cheaper doing it this way, and more convenient to buy a mix.

Just like a regular lawn, the best time to seed a bee lawn is early spring or fall. Cut the lawn as short as you can and rake out the clippings.  Then use a rake and rake through the soil to loosen the surface and finally spread your seed. It is important to water frequently for the next couple of weeks so the seeds can germinate and start to grow. See the above video for easy to follow directions.

I was also intrigued that Flawn had directions for over seeding in the winter with snow on the ground! See this video.

Of course the results will vary according to the growing conditions such as sunlight, soil quality, moisture available, etc. And if you want more flowers simply mow less often and at a higher height when you do mow. Most importantly, make sure not to mow when the flowers are budding.