More lawns are going native
By David Peterson, Star Tribune
Four geese nibble at Craig Avery's back yard as he stands on a stone patio alongside his gleaming silver grill. And he makes no move to shoo them off. But then, his newly created yard in Minnetonka isn't at all what you would expect. His landscaper seeded it with clover. And the geese help keep it trim. "They are," he said, "just like little lawn mowers."
Avery moved last week into a new species of developments that aims to shrink the vast sea of manicured, watered, mowed and chemical-sprinkled lawns that became an icon of late 20th-century suburbia.
The new subdivisions are just one element of a movement growing with help from government agencies and university biologists.
More communities are moving away from turf-covered lawns in this era of hotter summers, rationed water and rising concern about the environmental side effects of a cherished part of suburban life.
"If we don't, as developers, try to create neighborhoods that are more in tune with Mother Nature, we are going to have issues, and more issues, and more issues, basically," said developer Mark Biermann, who is creating an environmentally friendly subdivision in Red Wing, called Highlands of Red Wing. "Look at this summer, how dry it's been -- a prime example. We're planting low fescue grasses that don't even need irrigation."
Although the change is hard to quantify, experts say, there are ways of illustrating it.
"When we got into this business 20 years ago," said Roy Robison, co-owner of Landscape Alternatives in Shafer, Minn., "there really were no landscapers doing this type of work. We had to do everything. Now there's probably 20 companies out there who are familiar with native plants."
Robison's firm is responsible for the low-maintenance native plantings lining the Hiawatha light-rail line.
In just one project -- Avery's subdivision in Minnetonka -- a Prior Lake firm called Applied Ecological Services Inc. says it installed more than 20,000 plants and 500 native trees and shrubs, while seeding much of the rest of the 13 acres being landscaped.
Among the more telling moves, some say: a decision by Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration to invest pollution-control money to help create a model for large-lot suburban development in the exurban town of Hanover, in the heart of the some of the metro's fastest growth.
"People are buying 2½-acre lots and don't know what to do with them," said Fred Rozumalski, landscape ecologist for Barr Engineering in Edina, which has the contract to draw up the Hanover plans. "They've got to plant something, so they put turf down and keep mowing it forever. If, instead, their own 1/3-acre lot backed up to a huge area of open space that they didn't have to take care of, I really think a lot of people would jump for that. We're designing it to show how it could be done."
'Garbage lawn'?
All of those pushing for a move away from conventional lawns admit that it isn't easy.
"The difference between a 'garbage lawn' and 'converting to native plantings' can be kind of fuzzy, especially in the early stages," said Brian Horgan, a turf grass specialist at the University of Minnesota. And the early stages last a long time.
"It usually takes three to four years, and during that time there's a lot of weed pressure and a lot of questions as to 'why the heck you aren't mowing the lawn.' "
People do accept the change, many experts say, but it needs to be done with care.
"You need to have some really 'formal edges,' to show that the property is being taken care of," said Lee Marlowe, an ecologist working on the new Minnetonka development Avery has moved into, called Portico on the Green. "Then it can be wild."
'Maintained edge'
State officials learned that lesson a number of years ago when they cut back severely on mowing, said Carol Zoff, senior landscape architect for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. "Our surveys indicate that people look for a 'cue for care,' a maintained edge. They don't necessarily mind waving grasses, or wildflowers of a significant height, but they want to know that we are actively maintaining the vegetation."
Suburbs, such as Golden Valley and Minnetonka, that have chosen in recent years to amend their laws to allow alternatives to turf often insist on some signal to passersby as to what the rebel homeowner is up to -- a sign, for instance. They also haven't given up on regulating the height or type of plants.
City officials in some suburbs are trying to show the way, by mowing less -- and bracing for complaints from residents.
"We're trying to get away from mowed, manicured turf and tending to stay more natural, with more native vegetation," said Robert Klatt, parks and recreation director in Woodbury. "And people generally are supportive of that; it's gone well."
Because turf does have its place, University of Minnesota scientists are accelerating efforts to create new varieties of grass less alien to the Midwest than the ones most rely on now. That would minimize the sprinkling and chemical struggle to keep grass alive and looking nice. They hope to have the new varieties on the market within two to three years.
As for Avery, he seems content with his choice, though he admits it has drawbacks. Geese poop on his artfully created stone patio, and there's no place for badminton on his property.
But the developer of Portico on the Green has supplied, across the street, a communal green, a shared space that Avery envisions as the sort of place one could stage a child's high school graduation party.
He calls it, with a wry smile, his "surrogate lawn."
FOR MORE ONLINE
• The University of Minnesota offers a host of resources, which can be found at www.startribune.com/a1484, including a description of so-called low-impact lawns (www.startribune.com/a3047).
• Minnetonka offers a similar array, including a list of about 20 companies selling alternative products (www.startribune.com/a3048).
David Peterson • 612-673-4440 • dapeterson@startribune.com
Posted: July 11, 2007