The Lawn Must Go

Hello!

My lawn is about 4 years old (GC that built our house seeded it all with contractor seed, covered with straw).  We've had perpetual issues (grubs, bare spots, guilt from water use), I don't like the idea of mowing, and manicured lawns are boring anyway.

I was hoping to get some advice!

Goals:

Convert about 2 acres of somewhat sandy, acidic soil in southern Maine to something meadowy
Increase biodiversity, encourage pollinators and other beneficial critters
Still keep it short, comfy, and manageable enough to be used as a yard for activities
Eliminate or reduce the need to mow

Concerns:
Length - I have 3 daughters and 2 dogs, and don't want to encourage tick growth
Usability - I would like to keep the yard "playable", we spend a lot of time outside
Workload - I've seen some recommendations for ripping up the existing lawn to meadow.  I do not want to do this!
Choices - I don't know what plants might hit some or all of those goals while also being native to my area

My spitball plan was to seed the entire lawn with clover, wildflower mix, and maybe some ryegrass as a nursery plant.  I was also considering neem oil to deal with the grub infestation and the Japanese beetles that make a meal out of my fruit trees every summer.

Any guidance is appreciated!

May I suggest you try beneficial nematodes instead of neem oil.  They cover the insects you have mentioned as well as fire ants and fleas. When I use them I have to hope for a period of cooler and wetter weather than is common in my area but it really helps me with the fire ants.  Everything else incidental but nice as a side benefit.  I doubt you can get away with not mowing at all.  Even here where we are currently in drought I have to go pull several saplings that have sprouted in my yard. If you invest in a good tool for uprooting particularly stubborn species of tree and shrub you may be able to reduce it to only a few times a year.  Especially if you mow a few paths for the most important access points.  

As a child I grew up playing in fields of scrub cedar, prickly pear and wild grasses that were taller than I was. We would trample our own paths and uproot whole rooms to play in.  We thought we were building secret playhouses in the grass but as an adult I now know our parents were tall enough to easily see us as we played.  Good memories, much better than any I have of a lawn.  Just make sure your kids know what not to dig up.

Casie Becker wrote:May I suggest you try beneficial nematodes instead of neem oil.  They cover the insects you have mentioned as well as fire ants and fleas. When I use them I have to hope for a period of cooler and wetter weather than is common in my area but it really helps me with the fire ants.  Everything else incidental but nice as a side benefit.  I doubt you can get away with not mowing at all.  Even here where we are currently in drought I have to go pull several saplings that have sprouted in my yard. If you invest in a good tool for uprooting particularly stubborn species of tree and shrub you may be able to reduce it to only a few times a year.  Especially if you mow a few paths for the most important access points.  

As a child I grew up playing in fields of scrub cedar, prickly pear and wild grasses that were taller than I was. We would trample our own paths and uproot whole rooms to play in.  We thought we were building secret playhouses in the grass but as an adult I now know our parents were tall enough to easily see us as we played.  Good memories, much better than any I have of a lawn.  Just make sure your kids know what not to dig up.

Thank you for the reply.  I've considered nematodes before but was told that they have to be applied in late summer where I live, which is too late for what I would like to do.  

I don't mind mowing infrequently, I more meant that I don't want the upkeep of a manicured lawn.

My main concern with long length is ticks getting on my kids.  The ticks in my area are a serious problem as it is and I do not want to create an environment that encourages their growth.

I should probably ask my mom how she was dealing with it.  She has some horrible stories of how bad the ticks got on some of the local dogs but I don't remember a single tick on us kids. Fire ants, prickly pears, poison ivy/oak, lots of other prickly plants but no ticks.  These were real wild fields we were playing in so you'd think we'd have been exposed.   I will post if she has an answer for me.

Here we spray the nematodes in late fall or early spring.   This year was too hot and dry to be worth it, but so long as your ground is thawed I bet you could spray.  They might start slower, but they are literally stored in refrigerators until use.

I think I would just over-seed with clover this year.  I seeded our new "lawn" with clover and it established pretty quickly.  It's pretty, it stays short so you don't have to mow, it smells good.  I'm really liking it so far.  You can see how it goes and add other things later if you like.  I put some vetch in too and it is doing well.

As long as it is kept pretty short, the ticks won't be a huge issue.  If you plant anything much taller than very low growing clover, I think you will have ticks.  

I would plant trees and bushes on part of it.  I would do that on the property line at the very least.  The privacy and wind break you get from the trees and bushed would be worth giving up a little of my yard, but it may not be for you.  Personally, I would rather play in an area with bushes and trees and interesting things like that, but my lady is one of those people that likes big open "lawns".  She likes to think about a bunch of people hanging out and playing touch football or volleyball or something, in spite of the fact that we really don't have many friends, and we never have anyone over except family, and that is very rare.  I think it's silly to have a huge yard, but she likes it, so the clover is a nice compromise.

And I was talking to my mom for a different reason but I asked about the ticks.  People weren't as worried about tick born disease then.  She never even thought about it even while dealing with bad cases on our dogs on the regular. She doesn't remember any of us ever getting a single one, but she wasn't doing anything special. We pretty much ran wild everywhere the dog went.

Editing to clarify that I am not saying you should  ignore the problem.   Just that I don't have any solution... I think other kids would have been talking about it if they were getting them.  It's exactly the kind of thing the boys would have used to gross out girls so I think I would have noticed.  Sorry I don't have any useful information.  

I think this is a fantastic idea.
I remember a video The History Guy did awhile back on the history of lawns - it's pretty eye-opening how much time and resources they consume while having very little actual use.

Steven Gallo wrote:
Concerns:
Length - I have 3 daughters and 2 dogs, and don't want to encourage tick growth
Usability - I would like to keep the yard "playable", we spend a lot of time outside
Workload - I've seen some recommendations for ripping up the existing lawn to meadow.  I do not want to do this!
Choices - I don't know what plants might hit some or all of those goals while also being native to my area

Just a few more ideas to think about:
Length - free-range chickens/guninea hens to help mitigate ticks
Usability - You can make it more fun for kids with things like arches and bean tipi's - also if there are things like grapes for them to graze on.
Workload - lay down cardboard on top of the grass as a weed barrier and cover with wood chips - if you can swing it, sometimes a local tree services will haul it in and dump it for you for free just to be rid of it.
Choices - No specific ideas there. Could be good to walk/drive around and pay attention to what likes to grow on its own without much human intervention.