Brown, dried out branches stretched towards us, and the wind blew seed pods onto our shoulders and hands, dusting us with the offerings of the fading summer nature. There was little green left in the yard, but it was clear that if we had stumbled upon this house in the middle of July, the space would’ve been consumed with radiant flowers and trees that were not so withered.
My grandfather and I stood on a street corner in Ann Arbor’s Burns Park neighborhood — an area dominated by younger couples pushing strollers, teenagers whizzing by on bikes and runners flushed from exertion. We had stopped walking because my grandfather, a meticulous man, had remarked on the disarray of this particular lawn. Unlike his own yard, the one before us did not appear to have been mowed in quite some time. Dried leaves, an indicator of the fast approaching cold weather, lay scattered across the yard. Perhaps most disturbing to him — a man very fond of machines and various apparatuses — was the absence of gardening tools. I stepped closer to the yard, entranced by the wild beauty of the place. It was so unlike the neighboring lawns with their neatly mowed grass that was still somehow, despite the autumn season, a vibrant and blinding green.
As I approached the yard, I saw a staked sign that read, “This yard is part of the pollinator-aware yard care program.” I turned to my grandfather to reassure him that these people were not careless citizens lacking regard for the appearance of the neighborhood, but that they were, in fact, attempting to do their part in service to the environment.
Pollinator gardens often contain a diverse range of native flowering species and can be easily recognized by their more wild, overgrown look. Gardeners are encouraged to let their plants flower without over-fertilizing, trimming or cutting back growth; this increases pollen production and preserves pollinators’ natural habitats. Starting a pollinator garden requires research in order to determine what plants are native to your area. Because wildflowers are not the same as native plants, it is crucial that only very specific plants are introduced into an intended pollinator garden.
So, contrary to popular belief, pollinator gardens are not simply lawns that grow unchecked. They require careful — albeit more minimal — maintenance. Pollinator gardens strike a fine balance between embracing the more wild side of nature and a less curated, slightly more hands-off gardening approach.
Explaining all of this to my grandfather, he seemed appeased, as he is also a reasonable man, and we began to walk again. Our footsteps carried us away from this wild sight and into a bonanza of manicured lawns.
***
From 1989 to 2008, the number of commercial honey bee colonies fell by more than 30%. Finally noticing the drastic decline in a hugely important resource for the country — honey bees contribute $15 billion to the US economy each year — the United States government introduced the 2008 Farm Bill. The bill increased funding for research on bees and emphasized the importance of establishing conservation programs that supported habitat restoration for pollinators.
The bill did have a positive impact on protecting pollinators, as, since 2008, the country has not faced as steady of a loss of commercial honey bee colonies as it did in the 1990s. However, honey bee colonies remain in decline. And despite increased and more recent initiatives to protect pollinators, such as the Obama administration’s 2015 national strategy to promote the health of honey bees, the country faces the dire reality that climate change is happening at a faster rate than 2016 data estimated. As droughts become more frequent and heat levels rise, more people are asking the pressing question: What can we do?
Pollinator gardens are an obvious answer. They are an example of small-scale, direct action with proven benefits. At their core, pollinator gardens aim to provide sufficient nectar and pollen to pollinators and reestablish native flora. Many communities have unused green spaces, and many individuals — more than 80% of Americans — have lawns. Such spaces can fairly easily be turned into pollinator gardens by mowing grass less regularly and planting native species. Cities like Ann Arbor have increasingly developed local initiatives to promote such practices in order to preserve natural pollinator habitats.
The Ann Arbor Pollinator-Aware Yard Care program was established after the Ann Arbor City Council approved Resolution R-23-111 in 2023. The program aims to provide resources to those who want to implement gardening practices that will increase the population of native pollinators. The community organization provides helpful tips for the making of pollinator gardens such as adding clover to turfgrass areas to give soil greater nutrients without using chemical supplements, allowing grass to grow taller to provide a habitat for pollinators and not raking fall leaves. Overall, by involving ourselves less with the meticulous upkeep and care that we so often grant to lawns and backyards, we might allow natural habitats and pollinators to thrive.
While the sight of the lawn in Burns Park was surprising to me, mostly because of the relative scarcity of pollinator gardens, it was not the first time that I had encountered the concept. In Connecticut, my family has begun to let the grass in our lawn grow. We now mow it only twice during the summer as opposed to a previous schedule of bi-weekly mowings. When my parents first sent me a picture of our yard a few months after I’d left for school and a few months into the experiment, I was shocked. My first reaction to the unkept, brownish grass was that it looked ugly. I thought our yard now looked uncared for and decrepit.
In retrospect, my reaction confuses me. Although my grandfather had seemed stymied by the disorganization of the yard in Burns Park, neither of us had described it as ugly. I think that only when it comes to transforming spaces that we are familiar with do we find it difficult to call the new version beautiful. My lawn in Connecticut was ugly because it was unfamiliar — it was not the lawn I knew.
In many ways, I think the hardest part of the pollinator garden initiative is getting people to overcome this hurdle of transition and unfamiliarity. The American lawn is something that has been idealized in the country for more than a century. The ideal of a white picket fence and vibrant green grass has become a national symbol of prosperity, despite the environmental consequences. It is a standard of beauty that is often unattainable and completely unnatural.
American lawns have always functioned as a sign of taste, privilege and order, but in the aftermath of World War II and the rise of suburbia, the American lawn became synonymous with the American dream. A kept lawn began to express the idea that through hard work, neat and tidy homeownership was possible for all Americans. As Abe Levitt, creator of some of the first mass suburban housing developments in the United States, said about the American lawn in 1949, “It is the first thing a visitor sees. And first impressions are lasting ones.” Evidently, value was placed on the appearance of lawns with no real consideration for the environmental impact of using millions of gallons of water nationwide to maintain vibrant green grass. Postwar and forevermore, as long as your lawn was mowed and green, you were propelling yourself further toward achieving the American Dream.
As American lawns continued to rise in popularity with the development of suburbia, an urban movement in New York City sought to establish beauty in a very different way. In 1973, Liz Christy alongside the Green Guerillas, a community group of horticulturists and botanists, sought to improve abandoned open spaces in New York City and create community gardens. In order to foster the growth of wildlife in these previously undeveloped areas, Christy and the Green Guerillas would toss seed bombs over fences into empty lots. Seed bombs originate with the ancient Japanese practice of “tsuchi dango” which roughly translates to “earth-dumping.” In the 20th century, Japanese farmer, Masanobu Fukoka reintroduced the world to seed bombs as a way to promote the growth of native vegetation.
Seed bombs are most typically constructed with clay, soil and wildflower seeds and when thrown onto land, the wildflower seeds disperse. In 1973, Christy and the Green Guerillas, due to limited funds, made seed bombs in a more unconventional way: They filled unused condoms with wildflower seeds, water and fertilizer.
Seed bombs, specifically as used by Christy and the Green Guerillas, seem antithetical to the maintenance of the American lawn. Their violent form of dispersion opposes careful watering and manicured mowing. Seed bombs were used to protest the “ugliness” of New York spaces — spaces deprived of any nature at all. The result? Spaces that achieve the very same effect and qualify as current day pollinator gardens.
There is an important and timely lesson here. Perhaps it is true that beauty can exist in the American lawn. I am willing to concede this. The even grass and flower rows are beautiful. They are orderly and neat and satisfying. But there is also beauty in the wild, and when we learn that our practices of beautification are harmful to entire ecosystems, we have a responsibility to turn away from them.
Seed bombs and the Guerilla Gardeners reveal that wild beauty was opted for even in a time when the American lawn was far more essential to the national psyche than it is now. Christy was on to something in the ’70s. There’s both physical and ethical beauty in wild lawns when we remove the notion of what a lawn “should” look like.
***
As I walked away from the pollinator garden in Burns Park, I pondered how we, as students, could be creating pollinator gardens of our own. I live in a house, so I do have access to a green space in my “backyard.” But many other University of Michigan students live in apartments or dorms and are not in a position to implement many of the practices listed by the Ann Arbor Pollinator-Aware Yard Care program.
Yet, as we watch our screens broadcast the news of climate tragedy after climate tragedy, it only becomes more apparent that something has to be done. In the future, when we may become homeowners ourselves, we must commit ourselves to re-examining the idea of the American lawn and to implementing green and sustainable practices — too much is at stake for us not to.
For right now, as a busy, often over-tired and overworked student, I will explain pollinator gardens to my grandfather, and I will commit to not raking my leaves. I hope to see more bees around here come spring.
Statement columnist Olivia Kane can be reached at ohkane@umich.edu.