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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Now that it's summertime, and if you're in the burbs, you might be thinking about ways to revamp your lawn care to make the most out of your little personal plot of greenery. Maybe you've already got the mower out, set to the tightest trim you can get, or maybe you've been seeing some of the recent talk about rewilding and how letting your lawn go feral could be better for creatures that could use the help, bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, or other pollinators or maybe that's just what you tell yourself to justify never having to mow again.

As it turns out, both approaches from tightly manicured turf to a freewheeling lawn, not great for the environment. We're going to talk about some proper ways to make your private green space more sustainable, how your lawn can help with drainage in your neighborhood if it's prone to flooding, how native plants can provide habitats for migrating pollinators, and how to make sure your neighbors don't get on your case for creating an eyesore in the name of environmentalism.

Joining me now to talk about all of it, please welcome a pair of Rutgers professors and county agents of the school's Cooperative Extension Program, which aims to make the university's environmental insights available to anybody in the area. They are Michele Bakacs. Hi, Michele.

Michele Bakacs: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: I'm so glad you're here. Amy, nice to meet you as well.

Amy Rowe: Thanks for having us.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about lawns which are human inventions. Michele, without some of the sustainable landscaping strategies that we'll talk about in a bit, how should we be thinking about our lawns in the bigger ecological context?

Michele Bakacs: As you said, lawns are man, woman-made constructs, and certainly there's a place for lawns in the landscape. Where they're absolutely necessary, there's a way to manage them. You can do that as environmentally friendly as possible, and we can certainly talk about that. One thing that we've been doing lately is talking to people about do you need as much lawn as you actually have. I think I saw a NASA estimate that the United States has something like 40 million acres of lawn, and it's our largest irrigated crop.

It's incredibly management intensive. Talking to people about thinking about where can you reduce lawn area. I have two kids, they play soccer. We need a lawn but we've also reduced our lawns to just where we need it. This old-school way of thinking of these McMansion large lawns our passe and we're encouraging people to go more environmentally friendly.

Alison Stewart: Michele's the flora part of this beat. Amy, you cover the fauna side of things, particularly pollinators. Why is it important to be thinking about pollinators as people think about how they are going to manage and tend a lawn?

Amy Rowe: Basically, we need pollinators for our food system certainly, but people may not realize that pollinators are important in the ecosystem. Our insects, our birds, all these pollinators are providing ecosystem services in the habitat. We are increasing biodiversity in the environment which means that we have more species of plants. We have different types of plants, we have flowering plants, we have all kinds of things. Also, all of those insects that we would be promoting are also important in the food chain for our food web and the food cycle in our landscape habitats as well.

People often don't think about that. We're promoting diversity in the ecosystem. We're promoting diversity among flowering plants. Getting all of the aesthetically pleasing plants that we want, we really need those pollinators to be there separately from the food system. We need to keep that in mind.

Alison Stewart: Michele, as we're thinking about our lawns, I know that you are very interested in talking about water management. We have seen flooding after Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Ida. It's pretty horrible. How do lawns impact drainage and what are some of the sustainable landscape being strategies that could help mitigate flooding?

Michele Bakacs: Sure. When lawns are heavily compacted then they don't infiltrate rainwater runoff or stormwater runoff. When you walk out into the world, everything around us, there's a lot of what we call impervious cover out there. Impervious cover are hard surfaces that don't allow water to infiltrate into the grounds. That's what we want to be doing. We want to be trying to using what's called green infrastructure practices to try to infiltrate as much rainwater on site as we can to help reduce flooding and to protect water quality.

Lawns can be a part of that. They can be managed in a way so that they can be like a sponge to soak up the runoff. There's practices that can be done, for example, maybe not right now. We're going into a period where lawns are going dormant, especially if you have cool seasoned grasses in your lawn but what you should be thinking about now is your fall lawn practices. Fall is really the time to be thinking about lawns.

That's when you want to be thinking about aerating the lawn and incorporating compost, reducing compaction, and trying to make your lawn into a sponge, starting to mow high at three or three and a half inches which will encourage deep root growth and will help get that water into the ground. Then also where can you use some lawn alternatives? Where can you integrate things like rain gardens or bioswales that provide great habitat, and then also help infiltrate that rainwater runoff into the ground?

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we're talking about sustainable landscaping, and we can take your calls. Have you tried to make your lawn environmentally friendly? Have you gone out of the way to attract pollinators like bees or butterflies, or maybe you have questions about how you can manage your home's outdoor space to improve biodiversity or reduce flooding? The number is 212-433-9692. Phone lines are open, 212-433-WNYC. You can also text that number now, or you can hit us up on our social media @allofitwnyc.

That's both of our socials. We're speaking with Rutgers associate professors, Michele Bakacs and Amy Rowe. Amy, we talked about lawns. Michele has used the word habitat. What are the features that makes something a habitat as opposed to a lawn?

Amy Rowe: That is a loaded question for sure. Basically, as we had stated previously, we're trying to increase the number of species. Just having your turf is what we call a monoculture where you just have one plant covering your entire yard. That is not a habitat for anybody really, except maybe Japanese beetles which we don't want to encourage. The more plants you have, the more diverse species that you have. Planting different types of plants so you have some grasses, you have some shrubs, you have some trees, you have some flowers.

The more options that you have for different types of critters, the more you will attract them to your yard and that will start to provide this mini-ecosystem for everybody. Like I said, the birds, the bees, the other insects. Even you may start to get some mammals that you may not see just because you're attracting everything into this space. Those plants that are providing all kinds of system services will certainly help with providing pollen, providing nectar for all those pollinators.

Once you really start to have a variety of species, you start to attract more species and that will help everything become a true ecosystem and habitat rather than just, here's the turf. That is only providing some aesthetics and possibly some athletic space for the kids but you really want to encourage a diverse range of plants and other species.

Alison Stewart: Michele, there's root-- Oh, go ahead.

Michele Bakacs: Sure. Habitat means home. You're thinking about how can we make home for wildlife and migrating birds and butterflies and bees. In addition to thinking about what plants are there, and we want as much as possible people to be using native plants, plants that are indigenous to the region that supports local food webs. You also want to be thinking about your management practices in those areas. In the fall, maybe not cleaning up so quickly, leaving a lot of those grasses, leaving winter interest, leaving spaces for wildlife over winter. For example, some people think that a lot of our butterflies migrate in the winter because they know about monarch butterfly. Actually, a lot of our butterflies over winter as caterpillars are in eggs and they're doing that on leaves and on twigs and on spaces in the debris that we leave. Making sure to not clean up so quickly in the fall or in the spring and leaving those important homes for all that wildlife to thrive.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Neela calling in on line 1. Neela has some experience in this field. Hi, Neela. Thanks for calling in.

Neela: Hey, how are you? I'm calling in from Greenwood Cemetery.

Alison Stewart: Tell us more.

Neela: Greenwood Cemetery now for a couple of seasons has worked to transfer some of our lawn acres. We're over 400 acres of mostly lawn here and [audio cuts] to transfer 41 acres back to unload areas. That includes some garden space, some native plants, and just for the grass to grow really long. I'm actually sitting in front of three of these new gardens that we planted in maybe three years ago. Just looking at all the birds and wildlife that come in and out of there is just amazing.

Alison Stewart: Neela. Thanks for calling in. Let's talk to John calling from Nyack. Hi, John. Thanks for calling All Of It.

John: Hi. Good afternoon. A few years ago we stopped mowing our lawn in April so my daughters could have fun with the flowers in it. Then we took part in no-mow May and when then we decided after no-mow May just to let our lawn continue to grow, we've been rewarded with just this tremendous-- It's a quarter acre lot, but we have this little meadow that all sorts of creatures are taking refuge in and we have deer and groundhogs. It's just been really actually much more rewarding and beautiful as the grass has gotten higher. It's in the wind swept meadow that we never expected we have.

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in, John. Michelle, I wanted to ask you, there was a story recently making the rounds about a woman who did what was described as rewilding. I don't know if that's the correct term. Please correct me if I'm wrong. She said, "No more manicured lawn." Does that have a relationship or connection to sustainable landscaping?

Michele Bakacs: Rewilding? Sure, yes. Rewilding was originally used as a term to restore ecosystems and introduced larger animals into the landscape. For example, wolves out west. Now that term rewilding is also being used to introduce nature into our backyards. Amy and I do a tremendous amount of public education. Talking to lay people who may not be or may be scared in some situations of nature, don't really want to have so much contact with insects.

Rewilding, what is being encouraged there is bringing nature into our backyards. Living with nature. Looking at our managed spaces and thinking about what can be done, what can we do to increase biodiversity, increase habitat? Just as the caller said, having birds, migrating birds, encouraging pollinators and other wildlife. Maybe that means there's some ways to start small doing this. What that caller did was very aggressive, and it sounds like it's working for them. Some people work in communities where that would not necessarily work for them.

Maybe they live where there's a homeowner's association and there are rules about what they can do. We encourage people to start small with an area of their yard that is manageable for them. Research native plants that are appropriate for their particular site conditions. As Amy said, having flowers that have bloom times throughout the season sometimes that there's complaints that, "Well, native plants don't bloom for that long."

That's okay. It's a really fun project to research native plants that are appropriate for your spaces, terms of soil and light, and will thrive there throughout the seasons. We very much encourage people to start small with their rewilding, learn what's appropriate for the space and learn how to manage it most importantly.

Alison Stewart: Amy, if there's somebody who specifically would like to see bees and butterflies or hummingbirds or pollinators in their new space, what things should they think about planting?

Amy Rowe: Certainly if they're looking for those kinds of critters, you're going to plant perennial flowers. Those are very attractive to our native bees, to our hummingbirds. If you want to attract hummingbirds, you're looking for red-colored flowers. They are very attracted to those. That's why many hummingbird feeders have red and also the liquid that people put in them is red. For our native bees and other insects, flowers are going to be your best bet.

We are encouraging native plants like Michelle said, and there are all kinds of resources out there. We will provide you with some lists. We were just talking before this that there are a lot of resources out there for people that are looking for native plants and what's appropriate for their-- All the way down to individual counties, down to townships, there are native plant societies that provide lots of information to everybody across New York and New Jersey. I would recommend people taking a look at those, but certainly perennial flowers are very important for attracting those native bees, those pollinators, and those hummingbirds.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Suzanne from Fairhaven, New Jersey on line 6. Hi, Suzanne.

Suzanne: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. This year I'm planting a lawn, a new house. I started to investigate what my possibilities were and I have a half acre. I was going to end up with 10,000 square feet of lawn and I didn't want to maintain that. I wanted to have natural pollinators. We came up with an idea of using 50% fine fescue, which does not get mowed.

Half of my lawn is fine fescue, not mowed, and the other half is mowed so that you could play soccer on it, like with another caller was talking about. Now it takes about 25 minutes to cut my lawn and I have all of this beautiful, tall, fine fescue that grows where instead of having mulch in that has to be brought in, now I have this tall fescue or fine fescue rather that grows tall. That's a little confusing there, the terminology, but it's great because now I don't have to cut.

Alison Stewart: It sounds like it's working out for you, Suzanne. Thank you so much. Someone says in their building, they're letting the weeds grow, leaving butterfly bars out, looking at the highline for inspiration. Michelle, we only have a few minutes left. If people wanted to do something this weekend to get started, what would you suggest?

Michele Bakacs: I would suggest research because we're going into the driest time of the year, so this is not exactly a great time to be planting, but it is a great time to be planning. Fall is a fantastic time to be planting. I would encourage people to look at, for example, planting asters and golden rods in the fall. Those are critical keystone species for both pollinators and also for caterpillars, which are critical in the food web. Lepidoptera species are critical for supporting, for example, baby birds.

A lot of people think that for birds that they need to put out seeds, but actually, baby birds eat caterpillars. It's a really, really good protein source. Start researching what plants would be appropriate in your landscape. Think about in the fall, asters and golden rods, and then what you want to see seasonally.

Maybe in the spring, early spring ephemerals are some of my favorite species. For example, Virginia bluebells. Then people can start incorporating some summer plants like bee balm. Milkweed is very important. Penstemon, we have lots and lots of great penstemon species. Start researching what would be appropriate and then in the fall, you'll be ready. Also sourcing your plants. Where are you going to get your plants from?

Alison Stewart: Michele Bakacs and Amy Rowe, professors at Rutgers. They're also county agents for the school's Cooperative Extension Program. Thank you for all your good advice.

Michele Bakacs: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Amy Rowe: Thanks so much.

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