When it comes to an easy-to-care-for landscape feature, nothing beats the lawn. Feed it, mow it, and water it. Add in a few clean edges and you’re pretty much done. I admit, a thick, lush lawn with newly mown stripes looks appealing. I like the rich color, the scent of fresh lawn clippings, and I like to walk about the lawn in my bare feet. I’m sure many of you have pets and kids who enjoy the outdoor space in which to run about. If we’re to be honest, a lawn is more likely to entice children to play outside, away from the computer, than a garden would. A garden you go to explore, sit, and observe, but run about, kick a ball, play tag (do kids even play that anymore?), that calls for a lawn. Let’s stop demonizing people for having a lawn. Not everyone is within walking distance of a park where the kids can play, or the children may not be old enough to go to the park on their own. Not everyone lives on a street where you can play kick ball and not worry about traffic. If we can provide our children a safe place to play in their own yard, we should offer that to them.

With that said, I am sure families, who want a lawn for outdoor playing, also have a different area of the yard, perhaps the side or the front lawn, that could be reduced and turned over to a more nature-supporting landscape. We should all do our part to contribute to the support of native pollinators and birds. I believe we also owe it to our children to offer them a place in their own yard to learn about how pollinator plants support nature, how monarchs lay eggs, how those eggs hatch to become the original very hungry caterpillar that transforms into a butterfly. We owe it to our children to introduce them to nature and its calming, peaceful, healthy, educational, and magical qualities.

We don’t have to forgo one for the other: they can live in balance within our landscape.