Your lawn provides food, moisture and shelter for pollinators. A healthy, biodiverse and well-maintained lawn is a welcome food source and haven for insect and avian pollinators from Spring through Fall. Simply by letting pollinator favorites thrive in your lawn, plus incorporating early and late season pollinator plants, your lawn will become a thriving pollinator destination.
Clover and dandelions (which grow in most of our Upper Valley lawns) are a valuable three-season food source for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Goldfinches and sparrows feed on dandelion seeds. Wild strawberries and violets (which occur naturally in many or our lawns) are welcome early season food sources.
Clover: a favorite food for bees and a beneficial nitrogen fixing plant for your lawn.
Increase the pollinator value and beauty of your lawn in Spring. Plant drifts of flowering bulbs such as crocus, Siberian squill and daffodils. Add a pop of bright color with crocus. You’ll create a feast for hungry early season pollinators and your winter-weary eyes!
Drifts of Siberian squill and daffodils naturalized in a local lawn. To keep them coming back year after year, delay mowing them down until the leaves have yellowed. This allows next springs flowers to develop and the bulbs to multiply.
Add low growing, summer blooming perennials and self seeding plants to your lawn’s “pollinator buffet” such as Creeping Thyme or native prunella vulgaris . Creeping Thyme is especially well suited for use along the edge of walkways and driveways, where it will provide a fragrant, blooming transition to your lawn. Consult with your local garden shop and your landscaper to select plants that are right for your lawn’s microclimate and provide good forage for pollinators.
Prunella vulgaris naturalized in a lawn.
Pollinator friendly lawn maintenance will keep your lawn abuzz with life and your property looking good. Incorporating bee-friendly grass varieties such as fescues into your lawn will utilize fewer resources (including water) than a bluegrass lawn. Allowing the grass to grow longer between mowings and adjusting mowing height to 3 to 4 inches helps preserve pollinator habitat as well as a healthy lawn.