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My neighbor HATES me because I’ve been converting my backyard into clover. We have fireflies, Butterflies, bees, bunnies, all sorts of wildlife. It smells beautiful, but we are an oasis amongst upper-middle class lawn zombies… Mowing, edging, pesticide spraying, weed killing zombies.
Meanwhile, I have milkweed, clover, chive, snapdragons, black eyed susans, grapes, raspberries, lilac, echinacea, chamomile, lavender, hydrangea, coreopsis, and salvia. I welcome wasps that eat pests, I buy bags of ladybugs, I compost… I’m really trying. It’s only 1/4 an acre, but I’m trying.
Please keep doing it. As a poor landless peasant I celebrate your attempt to preserve some of nature. You’re buying time, which is vitally important
Since getting my own place I can actually have a more natural garden, removed so much concrete. So many bees! I can even hear them from inside now that they are swarming around the poppies. Sage and to some extent chive flowers got a few bees earlier in the year but those flowers have died off now.
Should take pictures of them so that in the future we can remember what bees were.
Hey, that’s pretty cool! Just make sure they’re not actually starting to build a hive inside your walls
From 1 internet stranger to another, thank you. It really means a lot to me that people are doing what they can at their own level like you. I know how demotivating and isolating it can feel to be the only one doing the necessary work.
I dislike the mowing robots because they seem to encourage the Flatt grass only gardens and I hate them.
You can still have flowers around them yes, but the grass is mostly a plant and insect desert.
I love this and I’m working towards a no lawn/native plants setup as well. I hope your neighbour’s hate fuels you. Keep at it!
Mine too! My lawn is slowly turning into a sea of clover, I throw wild flower seeds all over the place, and get to see all kinds of cool bugs! Hopefully they enjoy my 8 acres of natural habitat.
Incredibly based thank you for your service o7
Man im working so hard to be that yard, but its not as easy as just stop mowing!
Always on the lookout for invasives, poison ivy, tree sapplings (my yard isnt big enough to support any more trees without threatening the house), and other undesirables.
Then theres also the english ivy encroaching from the corner that I’ve pretty much given up on :/
It’s great that you’re helping your native plants stand against the invasives, they’re like the schoolyard bullies of the backyard.
English ivy is a tough one, but at least getting the vertical growth is a fairly easy to manage. the vertical growth is also more problematic because it is a requirement for producing berries and killing trees
It’s great that you’re helping your native plants stand against the invasives, they’re like the schoolyard bullies of the backyard.
My lack of mowing gives us a light show every summer night.
My yard is the only reason we have frogs and dragonflies.
Alright I’m going to need all of your suggestions as this is the project I’m working on right now.
A bought a small townhouse in Ontario 7 months ago and I have a tiny yard.
The yard had mostly grass, but had a little bit of moss, crab grass, and clover. There is a small garden, and many dirt patches in the yard.
I have spread clover seed in the yard, especially in the dirt patches.
Then I weeded the garden area, removed about half the rocks but left some in the garden, I have my mother coming over next month to help me pick local garden flowers, and I had to pull a tiny tree out because it was planted right beside the foundation of the building and would eventually cause damage.
What else should be added to the lawn? Should I be pulling out the crabgrass? What wildflowers are native to Ontario?
Visit some Garden Centres near you- often they’ll have seed mixes of local perennial flowers available for purchase, you just need to spread the seeds in the spring or autumn.
Also, “weeds” aren’t always weeds, they’re just plants that some people decided get in the way of monocultures. If it’s flowering, it’s feeding insects, so leave it be.
The fireflies are awesome in my area this summer and my humble yard is part of that. It’s honestly so satisfying watching plants come back year after year, bigger and bigger
I’d check for native species of clover, which is invasive in most of Canada.
Lightning bug, eh? I smell a Pennsylvania native
They’re called that in a lot of places.
Source: I’m from Texas.
And here’s a pretty picture to prove it.
Funny that Californians even have a strong opinion
Ha, great observation. For those that don’t know - the fireflies/lightning bugs known to the east coast don’t live on the west coast.
Apparently there are species that live west of the Rocky Mountains, but they are active during the day, and even at night the light they produce is too dim for the human eye to perceive. So the west coast doesn’t get the beautiful light shows that the east enjoys.
It makes me happy to see the phrase “lightning bug” used so often here on Lemmy. I grew up calling them lightning bugs, yet I felt like it’s been ages since I heard or saw that word. Then I started coming here, and I see it in every post about this topic. The term brings me back to my childhood, picturing the way my parents’ backyard used to light up every summer evening.
Germans:
“glow-wormsies”(Glühwürmchen)
That’s delightful
Huh, the more you know.
Yinz can get ahtta tahn.
Begone, Pittsburgher (more like Pittspeasant)
At least I’m not a fan of the Eagles, band and team.
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Lightning bugs never existed where I live 😞 I didn’t realize they were real until my mid teens even
West Coast?
I have a small, yet still growing, grove of wild flowers and grasses. I just let my side yard grow whatever it wants (except invasives).
#nolawnsi’d never heard fireflies called lightning bugs before
Ha! This is me and my yard. Let’s go!
Oh Lemmy, I saw all the lightning bugs in the trees last night, blinking fast as hell because of the high temperature, and I thought of you!
I was just discussing my raggedy-ass yard and it’s contribution to the local fauna.
Aren’t those called fireflies?
Depends on where you’re from
You can do a hell of a lot with a meter squared
