Landscaping Ideas: How to Embrace Your Lawn and Garden

Local landscaping nurseries typically have a wide selection of plants that are native to your area, and there are numerous benefits to putting native plants in your backyard. Native plants take little care since they're perfectly suited to the climate that you live in, and they're an excellent source of food for your local birds, bees, and butterflies. In addition to being an excellent choice for your backyard, it's also possible to fill your front lawn with native plants instead of turfgrass. To learn about the pros and cons of replacing your lawn with plants that are native to your area, read on.

Advantages of Replacing Your Lawn With Native Plants

The biggest advantage of replacing your front lawn with native plants is that native plants require much less care. Turfgrass requires a substantial amount of water, and you'll also need to periodically mow it in order to keep it from growing too high. Mowing your lawn can be tiresome, and the large amount of water that turfgrass requires to stay alive can result in significantly higher water bills for your home.

Native plants are accustomed to surviving with the natural amount of rainfall that your climate receives, so there's much less need to water them. Removing turfgrass from your lawn and replacing it with native plants helps to reduce your water bill, and you'll also eliminate the need to keep your lawn perfectly mowed.

In addition, native plants also make your lawn look more visually interesting. Native wildflowers will bloom, and you'll often have an abundance of butterflies flying around your lawn, feeding on your native plants. Blooming flowers make your front lawn look more colorful, and flowers that are native to your area are the easiest type to grow since they're hardy and acclimated to your climate.

Disadvantages of Replacing Your Front Lawn With Native Plants

The main downside of replacing your front lawn with native plants is that they're not a great walking surface. Homeowners cover their front lawns in turfgrass so that children can play on the lawn or they can host parties outdoors. Many native wildflowers will grow several inches tall, and you can't mow them to make them shorter without killing them or preventing their flowers from budding.

However, you can mostly avoid this problem by slowly introducing native plants to sections of your lawn. This keeps a surface of turfgrass available for you and your house guests to walk on while also allowing you to incorporate more native plants into your front lawn.

Overall, replacing the turfgrass on your front lawn with plants that are native to your area will help drastically reduce the amount of maintenance that your lawn needs. It's also beneficial to the environment since it provides a ready food source for local pollinators like bees and butterflies. If you're interested in making the switch, visit a local nursery that sells native plants and ask how you can best use them as part of your home's front lawn.