Benefits of Reducing the Size of Your Lawn

Video Transcript.

Hopefully you’re considering reducing the size of your lawn. Maybe you’re not ready to do a full-blown meadow or cut up sod, but I know you can do this.

This is the number one conversation starter when people pull onto my property.

Patrick, did your mower break? Why’s the grass so tall?

I’m going to give you some good reasons to reduce the size of your lawn and do it in this simple method.
One of the simplest ways to reduce parts of your lawn is to simply let an area grow. Now, it’s important, I have six of these on my property, I’m doing a lot of other projects, but there are areas where I just allow the turf grass to grow.

But we have to keep in mind this is a managed system. You can’t just let it go and think it’s just going to be full of beautiful native wildflowers. I do mow these areas once a year to keep down any woody growth. But I want to talk to you about the fact that if you let it go, and I mow mine in a little curvature pattern, we have to understand that people need to realize that this is purposeful.

Now, I want to get into some of the benefits.

Some of the main reasons that this is an easy method to let an area go is first I, I have to spend less time mowing. I can spend more time planting native plants, pulling invasives. I don’t have to use as much gas, do as much pollution.

The other great thing is you can see I have a lot of native trees and bushes planted in here, and I no longer have to individually mow around them, compacting the soil, getting mulch. I just allow the grass to be the mulch and allow me to keep from having to mow around them individually. In the fall, these grasses help catch the leaves that blow in off of my neighbor’s property. He has 10 Red Oak trees lining his driveway. That’s a lot of leaves, helps catch the leaves. And honestly, in the winter, it acts as a windbreak and it helps with the drifting snow across my driveway and it catches some of the snow.

I’d like to go back to another part of the property and talk to you about some natural benefits.

Some of my favorite reasons for just allowing a place to go that you maybe mow once a year is the fact that it provides a lot of cover and habitat for some of my favorite stuff. I, when I moved in here, this was five acres of mowed grass, herbicides, pesticides, you name it.

And this area provides cover and habitat for one of my favorite creatures, which is the lightning bug or fireflies. And I see them every evening coming up out of here because they require cool places during the day.

I also see dragonflies flying the edges of these grasses, I see rabbits. I’ve seen baby deer in here. And one of the things you can do is just take an area like this, maybe it’s you got a smaller yard, you just want to use a back corner and you can provide a brush pile.

I see all kinds of birds using this brush pile, I’ve pulled a couple downed logs in an area. And you also will be surprised, I have just where I’m standing, just by letting this go, and I mow it once a year around stuff I want to mow around.

So I have this Hackberry that’s a volunteer. I have two Red Oaks in here that are volunteers and a Black Walnut just where I’m standing.
And just by letting it go and finding out what comes up, you’re going to find a lot of other benefits on your own property.

I encourage you, please subscribe, like, share, comment on the video.

And I thank you for your time. Stay native.

Follow Up After Creating the Video

Once I allowed a few larger areas to rewild, I did have a number of meadow voles move in. This isn’t necessarily good or bad…unless…you have a lot of newly planted young trees and native shrubs, which I did. You can remember the difference between voles and moles pretty easily as voles eat veggies and moles eat meat. Needless to say, the voles did damage several of my trees, and they completely killed a bald cypress. I created a mesh ring around each tree I planted, and not too long after, I had a Red-Tailed Hawk and Sharp-Shinned Hawk hang out a lot to help with the voles.

Hawk Sitting on Bluebird House — *It’s not the best picture, but here is the Red-Tailed Hawk sitting on Bluebird house at the edge of one of my prairies and rewilded areas waiting to pounce on a vole.*

Related Resources

Need Help Going Native?

There are a lot of “rules” we’ve been told over the years and some hard-and-fast beliefs that we’ve developed as homeowners and gardeners. If you’d like help to understand a more eco-friendly, natural, and beneficial method, please reach out to learn more, and we can go native together!