Why Is Bee Lawn Care Important?

The quality of nutrition available to bees is directly related to the quality of nutrition available to humans, says MacArthur Fellow and Distinguished McKnight, Professor in Entomology Dr. Marla Spivak. She hosted her 2014 TED talk about the disappearance of bees. She goes on to describe how current agricultural practices in the United States are particularly bee-unfriendly. Planting acres upon acres of a single crop with no intervening or bordering flowers produces what she calls a “food desert for bees.” The substitution of artificial fertilizers for the practice of letting fields go fallow to build up soil fertility has reduced the presence of bee-friendly flowering plants over our agricultural landscape. Some bee-friendly flowering plants like clover and alfalfa are considered weeds. Similarly, artificial pesticides like neonicotinoids can either kill bees outright when they come to gather pollen. It also affects them neurologically so that it may be challenging to find their way home to their hive.

But the situation, she says, is not hopeless. Everyone can help in two ways: plant bee-friendly flowers and don’t contaminate them with pesticides. If you own or manage a lawn, it might be even easier than you think. It seems that switching out even part of your turfgrass for flowers can do wonders for supporting the bees among us.

Why Do We Have Flowerless Lawns?

In 17th century England, a well-maintained lawn was a sign of personal wealth, as it cost a great deal in human labor to cut (hand-scythe) and maintain it. In the United States' early history, there were lawns sometimes cultivated for sports, like lawn bowling and golf. Lawns eventually became associated with city parks and then migrated “from the civic center to North America’s backyards.” All of which is to say, why we have the lawns we have is somewhat arbitrary.

What Are the Benefits of Flowering Lawns?

Flowering lawns are beautiful, they help increase lawn resilience, and the natural diversity can also benefit various insects and animals. 

A University of Minnesota Bee Lab report on Flowering Bee Lawns for Pollinators puts it this way: Lawns are typically established for aesthetic purposes and show neatness and care. A flowering lawn is different than a traditional lawn. It's a natural mixture of flowering plants and turf grasses. Flowering lawns increase lawn resilience, provide natural diversity that benefits both insects and animals, and look beautiful. We can preserve the human use of lawns and improve their ability to support biodiversity by incorporating flowering plants.

How Do You Make a Bee Lawn?

The University of Minnesota’s Bee Lab states homeowners have two choices for changing a non-flowering lawn into a flowering one. Start from scratch and plant the grass right and the flowers or seed flowers into an existing lawn. The second option is cheaper, but flowers seeded into a lawn will compete with the grass. They need to be chosen carefully for your particular growing conditions: water, sun, and type of soil. Be sure to provide enough seed density and 200 seeds/square foot for some varieties of plants. Other techniques you can try to improve the competitiveness of the flowers you’re planting are “scalping.” Scalping means cutting the grass very short (1.5 inches) to allow greater sun exposure for the flower seedlings and aggressive watering (twice a day for 15-20 minutes).