Did you know you can provide pollinator-friendly lawns and landscapes for homeowners and commercial properties? More homeowners, for example, are investing in clover or micro-clover lawns to feed our pollinators while adding extra nitrogen to the soil.
And if you overseed lawns with micro-clover, the homeowners will not have to mow as often.
Of course, you can and should mix clover seed with regular turfgrass seed that adds contrast to your lawn. In this blog post, you’ll learn the following about creating pollinator-friendly lawns and landscapes:
- What is a Bee Lawn and what type of customer wants a pollinator-friendly lawn?
- How to plant and maintain a pollinator-friendly lawn.
- Pollinator-friendly lawn care tips for promoting biodiversity.
What is a Bee Lawn & What Type of Customer Wants a Pollinator-Friendly Lawn?
The Bee Lawn is the same as a pollinator-friendly one, but the name comes from a three-year study at the University of Minnesota’s Turfgrass Science Lawn and Bee Lab, called the “Bee Lawn Project.”
A bee lawn essentially involves planting pollinator-friendly, low-growing perennials combined with traditional turfgrass seeds that can be mowed. The low-growing perennials will bloom again after mowing, and the lawn will be biodiverse, providing pollinator-friendly food, nesting, and cover sources.
Read more: Sustainable Landscape Design Using Native Plants and More
Your eco-conscious commercial and residential landscaping customers may want this lawn on their property. They realize the need for more pollinator-friendly green spaces. Additionally, these customers aren’t afraid of bees, nor do they have bee sting allergies. They want to have a more biodiverse green space.
Your customers are also aware of climate change and want to do their small part in alleviating the dire consequences of it.
Penn State Extension’s article, The Buzz about Bee Lawns, says that seeding a lawn with a flowering plant mixture and grass seed feeds dozens of bee species that would’ve gone hungry without it.
You can also allow the pollinator-friendly lawn to grow up to 4” between mows. Again, this is an excellent alternative for homeowners who want a meadow lawn.
How to Plant and Maintain a Pollinator-Friendly Lawn
Planting a pollinator-friendly lawn is relatively simple. A bee lawn can include the following flowering perennials:
- Creeping thyme
- Dutch clover or micro clover
- Heal-all
- Sneezeweed
- Trefoil.
You’ll also notice that your pollinator-friendly customers’ lawns use less fertilizer than traditional lawns. Here’s what you need to know about starting a pollinator-friendly lawn:
- Mix a perennial, low-growing mix, such as Dutch clover or Dutch microclover, with turfgrass, like fine fescues, and Kentucky bluegrass seeds. Right now, bee lawns seem to work best with cool season grasses.
- Ideally, you want to plant perennial, low-growing seed at the same time as you put down turfgrass seed, which is in the fall. In the spring, you can fill in bare spots and overseed your clients’ lawn with a bee lawn mix, but there’s more competition with weeds.
- In the spring, you can plant a bee lawn with a mix of turfgrass and perennial flowering plants, but you’ll need to apply fertilizer and water it often.
- Start with aeration or a power rake to loosen the soil, and then overseed your client’s lawn with a pollinator-friendly seed mixed with turfgrass.
- If your customer’s lawn is full of weeds and compacted soil, you may need to renovate it before planting seeds.
- When renovating an overstressed lawn, you can use solarization or dig up the yard. If you choose a physical removal of the lawn, you’ll need a sod cutter.
Watch more: How to Use the Accu-Way™ on Your Spyker Spreader
- If you have no other choice, use glyphosate or other nonsystemic weed control to remove all of the grass. Alternatively, visit the Xerces Society (Xerces.org) for organic methods for lawn renovation.
- Use a drop spreader at the correct rate to apply the pollinator-friendly turfgrass seed mixture to your customer’s lawn.
- The Minnesota University Extension advises using the recommended rate of 4-5 pounds of seed per 1,000 sq. ft. You can use a handheld spreader to get into tight spaces.
- Gently rake the seed into the soil and apply a starter fertilizer if a soil test result indicates a lack of nutrients.
- Advise your customer to water their newly seeded lawn twice to three times weekly to keep the soil moist for seed germination. They can also cut back on watering when new seedlings emerge aboveground.
7 Pollinator-Friendly Lawn Care Tips for Promoting Biodiversity
While climate change and other ecological issues seem too large to help, you can create biodiverse lawns for your customers who are comfortable allowing some weeds in their yards.
If your customer base is interested in natural lawn care, you may also consider specializing in pollinator-friendly lawns and landscapes.
Here are seven tips you can incorporate into your lawn service and even promote on your blogs, social media, and email marketing:
- Emphasize Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with limited pesticide use. Overall, you can help homeowners set up their lawns and landscapes with IPM that limits weeds and pests naturally. Consider using alternative pesticides that are the least toxic and least persistent ingredients.
- Allow customers’ lawns to flower with violets, dandelions, and clover. In the early spring, you’ll provide pollinator food sources. You can also plant grape hyacinth and crocus in your customers’ lawns.
- Mow your customers’ lawns in the early morning or early evening when pollinators are less active.
- Provide landscaping services, planting wildflowers and native plants in your customers’ flowerbeds to complement a pollinator-friendly lawn. Also, plant spring bulbs such as allium, grape hyacinth, and crocus in the fall. Pollinators love these early spring flowers.
- Encourage your customers to create a pollinator-friendly habitat. If your customers want to delve into a biodiverse landscape, urge them to put flat rocks in their landscape as a sunny spot for bees and butterflies to rest.
- Provide unique birdbaths for customers to incorporate onto their property. Your customers should put them in sunny areas near pollinator-friendly plants.
- Prompt your customers to consider leaving stems and leaf mulch in the fall to provide a safe spot for pollinators to overwinter.
Summing Up
As a landscaping professional, you can provide pollinator-friendly lawns and landscapes for your eco-conscious customers. This starts with bee lawns containing low-growing perennial and turfgrass seeds.
If you choose to specialize in organic lawn care and landscaping, you may also introduce IPM to your clients, which reduces the use of pest and weed controls. Alternative pest and weed controls can also be used on a limited basis.
Encourage your natural lawn care customers to incorporate a biodiverse landscape and provide resting and watering spots for pollinators.
How Spyker Spreaders Supports Pollinator-Friendly Lawn Care Practices
Spyker Spreaders has lawn spreaders and landscaping equipment to help you create pollinator-friendly lawns and landscapes for your customers. Here are other Spyker lawn equipment to benefit a bee lawn and a biodiverse landscape:
- Lawn rollers tamp down clover seeds, topdressing, and fertilizers
- Spyker Sprayers help with applying liquid fertilizer, insect control, water, and more
- Our ERGO-PRO Series with adjustable handles provides handler comfort
- Our PRO Series Spreaders include a 120-lb. drop spreader, a bag spreader with a material-viewing window, a 120-lb. Ros 5 Ride-On Spreader with a Honda engine and a 200-lb. Tow-Behind Broadcast spreader.
You can find our Spyker lawn sprayers and other landscaping products at your local dealer, online, or at the Spyker store.
Spyker Customer Service: For warranty, service parts, or help at any time, reach out to our team by filling out our contact form. Replacement parts can also be ordered online at Spyker’s website.
Sources:
Extension.UMN.edu, Planting and Maintaining a Bee Lawn.
Extension.PSU.edu, The Buzz About Bee Lawns.
GetSunday.com, 4 Ways to Grow a Pollinator-Friendly Lawn.
YardandGarden.Extension.IAState.edu, How to Create a Pollinator Garden.
