By Rosina Newton

Late winter is the time we may start dreaming about the color green, about flowers, imagining new vistas as we look out our windows or walk around our frozen yard. This is a wonderful time to explore a fresh outlook on our little piece of earth. As new life emerges from dormancy, we may ask ourselves, “What is the purpose of my yard?” There are many possible answers: enjoying beauty and colorful flowers, complying with homeowners’ association regulations, conforming to the neighborhood, impressing neighbors and friends, creating a safe space for the kids to play, or wanting to help save our planet.

The good news is, almost all of these goals can be accomplished in a way that helps save our planet. Unfortunately, “to save our planet” has not been the driving force behind the horticulture industry for as long as I have been involved—over 35 years. Ever since the front yard married the industrial revolution, the design template has been pristine, monoculture lawns, cookie-cutter landscapes, and chemical maintenance. As it turns out, these three very common components of home landscaping contribute to human illness, species extinction, and our climate crisis.

My dear fellow stewards of the home landscape, we will briefly explore how our landscapes might contribute to such negative outcomes. Please bear with me through the bad news until we get to more of the good news.

The good news comes from the six individuals I interviewed who are actively involved in positive landscaping alternatives. I share with excitement and respect these companies and organizations that are designing, installing, and maintaining healthier outdoor spaces that also create more beauty, vitality, and joy in our lives. The work they are doing is literally healing our planet, one space at a time. They generously shared their wisdom and recommendations—from easy do-it-yourself steps to complete renovation, with lots of options in between.

But first, what exactly is wrong with a pristine lawn, and what is a monoculture anyway? You’re not alone if these ideas seem foreign to you. The majority of landscapes, advertisements, and gardening education surrounding us promote one kind of landscape, especially in the front yard: a uniform green lawn dotted with shade trees, some pattern of well-behaved shrubs, and shelves of products to maintain this design.

The perfect lawn can even be considered a status symbol. One local lawn care specialist told me, “It’s very competitive, keeping up with the Joneses.” Turf is expected to be a uniform expanse of one species —or a perfectly curated blend—of grasses. No clover, no flowers, and certainly no “weeds” are allowed. Think of a cornfield. That is another example of a monoculture.

But monocultures do not exist in nature. Lawn is an artificial design feature, and we have 40 million acres of it in the US. In The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession, Virginia Scott Jenkins writes:

The domestic front lawn is a typically American landscape feature. ...The first attempts at lawns in America were made by wealthy landowners in the late eighteenth century, people who learned of the new English landscape fashion through books, English indentured gardeners, and travel.

From the late 1700s to 2022 is a long time to adhere to a single fashion. Yes, men’s fashion at one time included stockings and powdered wigs. Yes, women used to wear pointy bras. Olive green and harvest gold used to be the fashionable color in our home furnishings. But creative ideas are never meant to be cemented permanently into our cultural environment.

A September 2020 article in Gardens Illustrated entitled “A History of Lawns” explains:

The climate in much of the USA is poorly adapted to lawn culture – nevertheless an increasingly uncompromising lawn aesthetic was vigorously pursued throughout the 20th century. The establishment and maintenance of lawns was conceived and enacted as a war against nature. Extraordinary excesses in the consumption of chemicals and water use were encouraged in pursuit of the ideal.

Exactly how do lawns contribute to illness, extinction, and our climate crisis? First, most people don’t realize that the lawn is “an ecological dead zone,” as Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope, calls it. This means that the lawn does not provide habitat for pollinators and other native beneficial insects that we want and need in our world. Without habitat for the little guys—and for more reasons explained below—extinction starts to creep up the food chain. Audubon reports we’ve lost three billion birds in North America since 1970.

Second, that “dead zone” extends down into the soil, too. Every lawn chemical, even plain old synthetic fertilizer, destroys the beautiful complex of microscopic life in the soil. This community of organisms works hard to sequester carbon and perform many other functions. When the microbes are gone, so are the ecosystem services they provide.

Third, according to most lawn care advice out there, maintaining a pristine lawn requires an arsenal of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. If we look at the active ingredient on a pesticide label and do a quick search using the Beyond Pesticides website (beyondpesticides.org/resources/pesticide-gateway), we can clearly see the negative health effects that science has already connected to the products for sale right now on the shelves at our local garden center or sitting in our own garage.

For example malathion, the active ingredient in many pesticides, has been shown to be an endocrine disrupter. It also has been shown to cause negative reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, kidney/liver damage, and birth/developmental defects. It is found in our groundwater. It is toxic to fish, birds, and bees.

Next, as we simply mow our turfgrass every week, we are also limiting the depth that the roots can grow underground. When we have heavy rains, the roots cannot absorb as much water as deeper-rooted plants, contributing to runoff and flooding.

When my husband and I moved into our home over three years ago, we did an “accidental experiment” in our far back yard. I did not want us to mow every square foot of land, so we only mowed pathways. The first two years, there was flooding in a particular low spot when we had heavy rains. In the third year, after heavy rains, the area did not flood! I was shocked and excited to realize that not mowing for just two years had allowed the existing grasses to grow deeper roots and tops, absorbing and transpiring the excess rain before it had a chance to puddle. Bravo, ecosystem services!

Mowing every week also adds to the arsenal of toxins in our world. Consider these statistics according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studies:

Americans burn 800 million gallons of gas every year trimming yards. In one hour of operation, one new gas-powered lawn mower produces an amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxide air pollution equal to eleven new cars driven for one hour.

Adverse health effects from gas-powered lawn and garden equipment emissions are well known. Benzene...and formaldehyde are listed among the four top ranking cancer-causing compounds. They cause lymphomas, leukemias, and other types of cancer. Ground level ozone … and fine particulate matter cause or contribute to heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer, and early death.

That’s a lot of bad news there but hang on—we’ve almost made it to the good news.

What is a conscientious lawn owner to do? If you’re not quite ready to overhaul the whole yard, and you like a little lawn, there’s still hope. Contrary to what we’re told, lawns can be maintained beautifully and organically. Why isn’t this common knowledge? Because there is a distinct lack of university research and funding in organic methodology. Lack of university research trickles down through the cooperative extension service, resulting in a dearth of public information, few organic products, such as fertilizer and pest control, and a lack of horticulture professionals trained and knowledgeable in organic products and methods.

Case in point: after researching almost a dozen lawn companies in our area who advertised organic lawn care, I interviewed the two that seemed most promising. Each one said that only 5% of their customers choose their 100% organic option. Sadly, neither one of these reps spoke knowledgeably about what it takes to maintain a lawn organically. Each organic “lawn care specialist” pushed the chemical weed control option. It is no surprise they didn’t have more organic customers.

I needed more good news. Therefore, I returned to my roots—a mecca of organic information and my alma mater, The Natural Gardener in Austin, Texas. This is where I spent 18 years learning and teaching organic methods. From their referral list, I found several recommended lawn care companies who knew their business. If an organic lawn can make it in Central Texas, it can make it anywhere. Southeast Michigan offers a much more hospitable environment for turfgrass: deep, fertile soil and regular rainfall, and a distinct lack of rocks, drought, and scorching heat.

I spoke with Barry Fassauer II, owner of Green Earth Conservation Lawn in Austin. His company offers an “organic, all electric, no emissions, sustainable lawn care and maintenance service.” He has been in business for about five years, employs seven staff members on three crews, caring for 500-600 lawns. He knows that to offer fully organic lawn care, he has to be educated and must educate his customers. He said, “I’m yapping about organics all day long!” Switching from a chemical regimen to organic requires patience and understanding of how nature works. “It’s a marathon,” Fassauer says, “not a sprint. Every chemical applied to the soil does harm,” so it takes time to reverse that harm and create a healthy, sustainable lawn. Why go to such trouble? Fassauer came from a farming family in Amarillo who used the usual array of chemicals. When his family members started getting cancer, he sought another way. It’s the same reason I am passionate about organic gardening.

What does organic lawn care look like? First, ditch all chemicals. Use organic fertilizer. Espoma All-Season Lawn Food or Sustane 8-2-4 are two pelletized choices. Don’t chain yourself to mowing every week. Mow as high as the mower allows and leave the clippings—that’s free fertilizer and crucial organic matter.

If your budget and time allow, go a step further and top dress with a half-inch or less of the real deal: good quality compost. Compost does more to heal damaged soil than anything else. It adds back the microorganisms, plus the organic matter that is the food they need to survive. That organic matter also loosens a compact or clayey soil and helps bind a sandy soil. It adds nutrients to feed the lawn. For a lawn transitioning to organic, applying compost once every spring or fall for a couple of years would do wonders. Especially add compost to the weedy areas. Studies have shown that weeds are less likely to grow in an area where compost was applied. Tuthill Farms in South Lyon makes the best bulk compost I’ve seen or buy bags at your local garden center.

Finally, remember that diversity is a good thing—in life and lawn—so rethink “weeds” in the lawn. Intentionally plant some white clover to add diversity and beneficial insect habitat. If you must get control over the most invasive members of the “alternative lawn plants” category, there are several choices. First realize that the healthier soil is, the thicker the lawn grows, which crowds out weeds. Fassauer and I would recommend corn gluten as a pre-emergent weed killer and spot treating weeds with a mixture of one gallon 20% vinegar with two tablespoons of dish soap and/or 3 tablespoons of orange oil. Remember that building back healthy soil and its living ecosystem takes time and patience.

Going organic and increasing diversity in our existing lawn and landscape will do wonders to turn an ecological dead zone into a carbon-sequestering system. For creating next-level environmental services, I discovered two local companies and one organization right in our backyard.

If you have ever stopped in your tracks to see a beautiful Southeast Michigan native garden or landscape, alive with butterflies and hummingbirds, it may have been designed or restored by PlantWise (plantwiserestoration.com). In business since 1998, David Mindell and his crews have installed native landscapes and rain gardens for homeowners all across southeastern Michigan in Ann Arbor, Chelsea, Whitmore Lake, Dexter, Gregory, and beyond. They work on family-sized yards all the way up to thousand-acre properties managed by municipalities or conservancies. The PlantWise mission is to do “the most ecological and aesthetic good for the sites in which we work.”

In September of last year, I spoke with Mindell. He shared some of the success stories from larger properties they’ve worked on.

For the last three years we’ve been working with a private landowner down in Tecumseh.

They’ve got about 50 acres that used to be a sand and gravel mine. It was abandoned as a mine many years ago. We’ve worked on knocking down the weeds throughout that area, and then planting the whole thing to a tallgrass prairie. This is the end of the second full growing season, and we’re starting to see all kinds of cool native plants coming, ranging from Lupine to Horsemint (Beebalm), and Black-eyed Susans, Blue Vervain, and lots of species diversity already. Lots of Little Bluestem and Indian Grass. It’s really fun to see those larger landscapes transform into something that’s going to be such a boon to pollinators, as well as other wildlife.

One of the crazy things is that many native species do great in terrible soils. So, while the topsoil had been stripped away and that was not a nutrient-rich site, oftentimes that’s perfect for many native species. Then, very quickly they (the native plants) are going to start to rebuild those rich soil conditions.

Many of us, myself included, are disheartened to see the effects of mining and other destructive actions on our earth. It is so encouraging and exciting to learn from David Mindell that such a degraded environment could bounce back so significantly in just two growing seasons.

Michigan has almost 3,300 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Add to that the shorelines of over 11,000 inland lakes over five acres in size, and we certainly have an abundance of beautiful lakeshore vistas. That intersection between the lake (or river) and land is an incredibly diverse and sensitive part of our landscape called the riparian zone.

Landowners who build retaining walls or have a lawn all the way up to the riparian zone have likely witnessed the destructive power of water and ice which carve into the banks and erode the soil. I caught up with Jim Brueck to find out how he and his crews at Native Lakescapes are restoring this unique ecosystem.

Brueck started Native Lakescapes in 2009. He grew up hiking, fishing, and hunting, and later in life learned about native plants and shoreline restoration. He and his crew have created “native lakescapes” on more than 15 lakes, including his own home on Middle Lake. Brueck told me:

The whole principle behind a more natural shoreline is to try to create a riparian buffer that allows a movement of wildlife from aquatic to upland. In order to do that, you have to have a variety of different plant material. You end up with this aquatic zone, and then the transitional or emerging (zone), and then upland.

The fascinating thing is that it’s probably one of the most diverse habitats that exists—that transitional area going from aquatic to upland. That in itself is kind of mind-boggling, saying, ‘Wow, that’s kind of cool! Right here in my yard I’ve got one of the most diverse habitats that exists!’ It provides a necessary transition for reptiles, turtles, and frogs that move from aquatic to uplands.

The buffer protects the lake from runoff, whether it be fertilizer or pet waste or whatever. It absorbs that and filtrates it down through the roots.

Not only that, Brueck said that having those three zones of plant life—aquatic, transitional, and upland—also protects the shoreline from erosion. It’s for all those reasons that myself and other people say, “Hey, you know, that’s a better approach versus a seawall, which ends up doing more damage to the lake—the scouring across it.”

I had to ask, “What is scouring?” Brueck said that the wave energy washing up against the shoreline erodes the soil behind the man-made seawall, and the lake bottom soil beneath the structure. In the spring when lake ice starts to melt, he’s seen the ice move “four or five foot boulders that probably weigh two or three tons.”

“The seawall is vertical, so the combination of bouncing back and then scouring along the bottom of it … there’s no hope for anything to grow there—no plant life. If you have no plants, you’ve taken away fish habitat. You’re taking away the plants that help oxidize the lake.”

Native Lakescapes uses a combination of native shoreline plants, boulders, and a variety of stabilization techniques to make the shoreline withstand the power of the water.

Brueck said that when you have a natural shoreline with plants providing wildlife habitat “all those things are helping the overall lake’s nutrition and the lake’s overall diversity.” A natural shoreline provides other benefits to landowners and lake as well. Just like any native planting, it reduces the amount of lawn mowing. It also discourages geese from the yard. These riparian buffers, with their deep-rooted plants, also provide flood control.

Brueck said, “If you are really wanting to help maintain a sustainable earth that you’d like to pass on to your children and grandchildren, here’s a way to do that. And it’s kind of a no pain, you know?”

This restoration work is absolutely essential right now and into the foreseeable future to help reverse climate change and sustain all life on earth. At the same time, with all due respect to Brueck and Mindell, our ultimate goal should be to eventually make restoration work obsolete! What? As the number one life form with the power to prevent further damage to our valuable ecosystems, humans must protect what we already have. One way to do this is to speak up before developers raze entire ecosystems to create new shopping malls and subdivisions. We can all become more aware of environmentally-sensitive development projects and make a phone call or write a letter. When we need to buy a new home, we can buy into an established neighborhood instead of newly-built subdivisions. When we need a new business location, we can renovate an existing building. We can vote with our dollars, our voices, our ballots, and all our actions. We can also support organizations that are actively protecting and restoring ecosystems that already exist on our public lands.

I was introduced to the work of Friends of the Rouge when they held a native plant sale near my home. Friends of the Rouge is a very busy and productive organization. They have conducted annual trash cleanups since 1986. They teach elementary, middle school, and high school students all across southeastern Michigan. They teach residents how to care for the river by planting rain gardens and native plants. The Friends have over 62,000 volunteers, some of whom are citizen scientists monitoring the health of the Rouge River Watershed. And Friends of the Rouge is developing a 27-mile paddling trail called the Lower Rouge River Water Trail or the Blueway Trail, from Canton to the Detroit River.

Last fall, I had the great pleasure of talking with Herman Jenkins, Trails Program Manager for FOTR. Herman is working to help make this Blueway Trail happen. The goal is to make it “fully accessible, with kayak launches and access points for people to be able to get into the water safely.” As of now, you can get on the river at the boat launch at TC Fieldhouse in Melvindale and exit at the Detroit River. That is a trip that will take about an hour and a half. As Herman says, that is really for the kayaking or canoeing enthusiasts. He and FOTR are working toward having multiple boat launches along this 27-mile stretch so that more people can enjoy the water and have a “more modest, recreational experience—something for families, groups of friends, or date night.” Herman says that with more options for shorter paddle trips, people would be able to “experience this hidden treasure that’s right in their backyard.”

Wayne County parks and eleven communities are situated along the banks of the Blueway Trail. Jenkins expressed:

The Rouge River is natural connective tissue that brings these communities together. The entire vision is really looking at how can we take this greatly restored Rouge River, how can we use that as a tool to really foster true and meaningful access and connectedness within these communities, using the river as a hub. So that’s the vision. That’s my role. I’m wearing a different hat every day. A lot goes into making a water trail real.

What else goes into it? Friends of the Rouge focuses on water quality for the safety and well-being of fish, wildlife, and humans. The mission behind everything they do is to improve the health of the Rouge River Watershed, from educating children and adults to cleaning up trash and opening log jams, along with building the Blueway Trail. Jenkins continued:

When I was a kid, the Rouge River was heavily polluted, a place that you didn’t want to go. It was very much neglected and a sad state of affairs. Fast forward into the future and I’m in a role where I’m creating a new built environment and new opportunities for my children to have a completely different relationship with the Rouge River. So for me, it’s a tremendous opportunity. There’s a sense of permanence, potentially, to the work that we’re doing, where this will far outlive me and my relevance in the world and just be a great benefit to a good number of people in Metro Detroit.

Spending just a half hour with Jenkins, listening to what he and Friends of the Rouge are doing, was way beyond beautiful. It enlivens my heart and inspires me to continue the work that I am doing.

Moving back into our home landscape, for my last interview I explored a landscape design concept that has inspired me since 2007, when I took my first Permaculture Design Course (PDC). Last October, I interviewed two members of Midwest Permaculture, an educational organization in Illinois. Owners Becky and Bill Wilson have been teaching permaculture for 15 years. They’ve taught over 88 courses and over 1700 graduates from all over the Midwest and the world.

Permaculture is a contraction of the words permanent and agriculture. The permaculture concept was developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1974. Mollison defines permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally-productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” Permaculture can be deep and complex and surprisingly simple.

I met with Bill Wilson, co-owner of Midwest Permaculture, and Megan Christian, a recent-student-turned-staff-member. I appreciated hearing about permaculture through the eyes of both a veteran permaculturist and a young teacher and designer.

Wilson shares:

Just imagine that you walk out of your house, and you just have one fruit tree. It’s in full production that particular year, and it’s just this incredible bounty. Every time you walk in and out of your house, you have a fresh pear or fresh apple or peach. It’s there for you in this incredible abundance, and what a pleasure that is to have fresh, ripe fruit right off the tree for like a month. If you preserve it and store it, now you’ve got it for six months—even a year if you can it. What a joy that is! If you know what’s in your soil, it could be some of the healthiest food you eat all year.

Now in permaculture we say, well, that was lovely. What else could I do? Why don’t I plant asparagus over here? And then in the spring, I just get asparagus! How about rhubarb over there? You start grouping things together and you can make little corners of your yard look like parks. They’re gorgeous and functional. Now you’ve got herbs in there and you’ve got plants that attract beautiful butterflies and other kinds of insects. Now it becomes fascinating. That’s what this is about. How do I make my yard become a place I love to be in?

We had this front yard, and we liked our front yard, but we never spent any time in it. When the boys were small, we’d go out there and roll a ball around or something, but that was maybe 15 hours of their childhood. Now we are in that front yard every single day. It is such a pleasure to walk into our yard. We have paths and all different plants growing, and the neighbors come. The kids love playing in our front yard because it’s so interesting.

Everybody has this idea you have to have grass. You put children in an area where there are rocks and some logs, trees, paths, and little low spots, frogs and toads jumping around and stuff—they are captivated and they’re learning! There’s a whole lot more to learn in our front yard than there is in a grass yard. So, this is mind-changing—paradigm-shifting—in terms of quality of life for all members of your family to be able to have a bit of nature right outside your front or back door.

Megan Christian advised, “Start with something small. Don’t jump in and feel overwhelmed. There are so many small changes that we can make that are going to make a huge difference.” She and Wilson also emphasized that if you like lawn, simply raising the mower deck to four inches builds up the soil, helps to improve rainwater absorption, and looks as beautiful as a two-inch lawn.

Christian also shared about the first step in the permaculture design process: observation. “We’re gathering as much data as possible. We’re observing how water is moving across our property. We’re observing the location of the sun and the shade patterns throughout our property. We’re learning to recognize patterns, and the way our property is interacting with itself. We can’t create a coherent design without understanding our property fully.”

There’s something different to see on every property. That’s what we lose when we try to get our yard to look just like the neighbors or a template from Garden Design magazine. The first step of permaculture design—observation—recognizes and honors the beauty and the diversity of every square inch of our earth. From there, we restore our land to a healthy, self-sustaining habitat for ourselves and all of life.

Right now, we know we are faced with a multitude of challenges, seemingly more so than any time in our lifetime. If we look at “everything that is wrong with our world,” we are likely to become overwhelmed with anxiety and powerlessness. We cannot fix everything. Yet, “the antidote for anxiety is action.” We can choose one thing to do, and start there.

These days, every solution-oriented action I can take—grand or small—is a balm to my soul. Every time I have the opportunity in my business to coach a new organic gardener or share with a new audience the beauty and intricacy of nature, I feel exhilarated. Every time I speak up, even if my voice shakes, is spiritual nutrition to me. I am rejuvenated when I have the inner strength to champion solutions versus despair. Likewise, every time I see another person or organization using their expertise, power, and action to heal some of the ills that face us, it lightens my spirit and inspires me to do more.

I am so grateful to these six humans for sharing their time with me, and for all the work they and their organizations are doing. No matter how grand or small, thank you dear reader for every choice you are making to be a part of the solution.