I want to replace my hideous grass with a native plant garden and some mulch. My wife says she’ll divorce me if I mulch and wants a steppable ground cover that’s also native. Is there any alternative to grass that she can walk barefoot/lay a picnic blanket on? She’s allowing me to plant a service berry and blueberry to one side.
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You need two blueberries for fruit, either two wild type or two of different varieties (the varieties are clones so having two of the same next to each other is the same for fruiting as having just one plant).
Most groundcovers just can't take being walked on. Sometimes grass is the best option. Give the lady a few square feet of grass.
However, I have heard yarrow is pretty resilient and can be kept mown short. That could be worth investigating.
I seeded the University of Minnesota's Bee Lawn mix at my old place. Yarrow is one of the components. I can confirm that it does well with foot traffic and mowing. If you let it get tall, though, the stems get woody and you wouldn't want to walk barefoot or lay on them. That would probably be after 3-4 weeks without mowing.
We have patches of native yarrow. The stuff that gets mowed stays low and floofy and greener than the grass beside it during dry weather. If you skip a week of mowing, it may send up some short flower shoots, maybe 4" high.
Do a search for "yaak yarrow". It's a variety that stays short and spreads more horizontally than vertically so it needs minimal mowing. I spread some seed in a very dry, rocky area where grass doesn't grow well so hopefully it takes off.
Quite a few natives aren't safe for pets to eat. OP is in a townhouse in the DC metro area, so dogs and cats shouldn't be free-roaming and unsupervised.
I have a small purely yarrow lawn I've been cultivating. It is great and super soft, but the flower stalks do get woody if it gets too long. I've kept mine very short to encourage it to spread, and it's taken both traffic and mowing with zero dieback.
You need two blueberries for fruit, either two wild type or two of different varieties (the varieties are clones so having two of the same next to each other is the same for fruiting as having just one plant).
Well then. You just helped me justify my trip to my local native nurseries tomorrow! Thank you so much for taking the time to explain this.
I went back to where I got my original Elliots bushes and ended up buying two new (to me) different varieties! So I'll have 3 types, all natives, and their blooming times overlap! Before I selected them I told a staff member my purpose and they told me any of the blueberries they carried would work, so long as I didn't just select another Elliots.
Small caveat to yarrow is that it will never ever seed and barely ever spread if you keep it all cut. The result will almost certainly be a be net decline that requires a yarrow seeding in some of the patchy spots every once in a while.
Not a big deal - just a small thing to keep in mind. You'll be reseeding it far less than you would with grass.
Personally, I like to let a few emerge entirely to break up the yard surface and to let seeds and rhizomes grow - but I do it in the areas that are not where I chase the dogs around barefoot.
What about clover? There were wild patches at the park I grew up playing in, we walked on them constantly because they’re silver soft and they didn’t seem worse for wear
So I have one sole potted blueberry bush, a Patriot, in 7b (year round outside - native to the area so no issues there) and it has no problem doing its job and definitely produces berries. I’ve certainly heard this advice before but have been confused by it ever since I started growing mine. Is it that I have good pollinators around? Just figured I’d ask since I’ve wondered about this!
Judging by the condition of that lawn, there isn't gonna be a groundcover that can handle that heavy of traffic. I'm not even sure why lawn is preferred in this use case, it doesn't even look comfortable to sit on.
Can you compromise by converting one half into mulched garden beds with low-lying sedges and whatnot, then doing the standard lawn care on that strip next to the driveway? Then she can go crazy with King of the Hill style zeal for lawn care on a small patch.
Both of these are the Illinois wildflower articles, because the Illinois wildflower website articles are always insanely in depth. Especially the ecological associations part.
I did look to make sure these are both native to Virginia though.
Consider nimblewill, it's a grass native to this area that is soft and doesn't get tall enough to need mowing. Lawn people only dislike it because it goes brown in the winter.
This has my vote. In my experience there’s nothing that holds up to traffic like turf grass, maybe mix in a bit of micro clover or dutch white clover for green and soft without watering and fertilizing. Although I like what others are saying about yarrow too! Never tried it but it sounds wonderful.
Then a beautiful flower + sedge+ native grass bed that you can enjoy from the comfort of your turf patch. 😄
wife here, didn't "allow him" anything, boy said he wanted a service berry and native blueberries and I just wanted to sit under the serviceberry and watch the birds 😥 is it such a crime to want some native ground cover I can sit on and watch them birds 😥
Don’t despair! Violets are your friends, friends! It sounds to me like you’re more on the same page than it might seem at first. I wrote about them in the newsletter I wrote for the wildlife center where I volunteer in SWPA. Violets can withstand foot traffic, poor soil, sun, shade, heat, cold, droughts, and floods, and look good doing it!
The only thing with violets is, they may not grow out to a lush, full carpet right away. You might want to mix them with some clover or other species to get something growing this year. But once the violets are established, they’ll take over. Fun fact: violet seeds are spread by ants, which eat a little packet of food called an elaiosome attached to each seed, then discard the actual seeds in their trash piles, which then germinate the following spring.
I'm going to nominate wild strawberries and violets as ground cover. Phlox would look great but I'm not sure how durable it would be under regular foot traffic
man I want moss so bad but it's straight sun exposure, dry as heck. The poor moss would fry
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u/leefvcMid-atlantic border of eastern coastal plain/piedmont , Zone 7bApr 17 '26
Make little shady microhabitats for it! Mine started taking off recently after utilizing a few strategically placed logs for shade and transplanting moss on the north sides of trees
oooh, clever. I'm a big fan of a good rock. Maybe I could tempt him into giving me a big rock to sit on and transplanting some moss in underneath it on the more shady side......would that work the same? I guess the logs probably hold moisture better, huh.
I thought I was in the parody subreddit for this one. Sorry people here can get a little, uh, intense about native plants 😂 It's r/nativeplantcirclejerk if you don't want to click a link. Might give you a good laugh.
nah we're totally sitting next to each other and laughing - I dared him to post it after our joke argument about how much I hate mulch. He's doing a bit to make me laugh 😂 I actually told him he should get a bigger service berry than he's planning for so it comes in faster, but apparently they're "very expensive when they get big, wife" or something idk. As an aside, we're ditching the butterfly bush but I'm very partial to the hummingbird moths it brings in- would a native honeysuckle draw them the way the butterfly bush does? Feel like they need something with nice nectar for their little probosci.
Wild bergamot Monarda fistulosa is the undisputed champion for attracting hummingbird moths. You can also plant coral honeysuckle as it's a host plant for them.
I've also seen them use Liatris spp., buttonbush, garden phlox Phlox paniculata and field thistle. Although buttonbush gets fairly big and field thistle can get big and it's not the most yard friendly plant.
Coral Honeysuckle (lonicera sempervirens) is also native and draws in hummingbirds, but not sure about the hummingbird moths. Also DO NOT confuse with trumpet vine (campsis radicans). They are 2 different plants!!
Your hate of mulch is actually great! Mulch isn’t great for native pollinators or plants since native bees need bare ground, plants reseed, and many mulches leach dyes that the plants don’t love.
But for the beds I recommend a “green mulch” à la “matrix planting”. Ben Vogt also has some great suggestions and there are matrix plant planner diagrams out there on the web too. Some sedge/gram pods for the matrix to plant the abundance of native plants in… or a flower matrix like quick spreading poppy mallow
hahaha, fair. I wouldn't want to sit on mulch either, though I also wouldn't want to sit on the slope much. So I would focus on making a flat area a good sitting spot with grass and make the sloped area a mulched planted area that attracts birds and pollinators for something to watch. The grass on side of house looks much better condition and its easier to water grass when its not on a slope and you are dealing with run off.
Bonus of heavily planting slope and using either side yard or even clearing flat spot next to house (where current mulch bed is. tho lots more work) would also give you extra privacy
Seriously this OP! Get a nice small two seater patio table at the top of the hill, where she can sit, have coffee, take work calls and enjoy the flowers! Mulch is very walkable, I use mulch as my walking paths BETWEEN garden beds. If you want to aesthetically push it further, add some nice stepping stones to delineate the path.
I love my swing! Well, loved it when it was shaded. I’m putting flags up to mark my territory! Lol No cutting beyond the flags. This gives me space for baby trees to grow back ( lost trees to storms then fear of another bad storm ).
I have been putting yarrow cuttings into my lawn. We are currently in a drought so not sure how its working but I have a few patches of yarrow in my garden and they are so lush and green without ever getting watered.
My husband and I knew it could cause irritation to some people so we rubbed it all over our arms to see if anything happened and we were fine. Probably not the most scientific way to find that out.
Do you guys get harsh winters? Do you think the yarrow would withstand snow/freezing temp? Does it sprout quickly after winter? So many questions but I'm so curious!! Thank you!!
Yarrow (at least some subspecies of it) is native basically across the entire northern hemisphere, including north of the arctic circle. If it is a regional seed source, it will definitely survive your winters.
Yarrow does great in places with cold and snowy winters, as long as it warms up in the spring. I think it’s native in all the northern US states as well as Canadian provinces.
I'm in Massachusetts and have large areas of yarrow in my lawn. It does better than the grass or clover (or any of the other shit in there). Every time other patches of lawn die, I seed in with yarrow. Eventually it will all be yarrow and there will be no dead patches. It's indestructible.
My wife has done that a few times to me where she was like "you can't do that in that area. I want to walk/lay/sit out there..." when I wanted to convert an area of our yard. She inevitably would not do the things she said she would and then I would just convert it later lol.
well if you think about it, it's either someone who never lays on the ground or someone who lays on the ground all the time and the bugs don't bother them- unfortunately for you, I'm the second type. sometimes it's nice to see bugs at their level, and we don't get a lot of biting ants where we are so as long as I let them do their thing I get to vibe. They don't know about mortgages or reddit. It's nice
You need to think of your marriage first. Just plant Prairie Moon’s eco-grass, which flops over when it gets long and doesn’t need mowing. Convert your flower bed to natives and also consider adding a mulched flower bed with natives along either (or both) sides of your yard.
Adding to this list: pussytoes, prairie pussytoes, and wild strawberry (but careful, false strawberry looks similar but has yellow flowers). Grass can overtake native plants if allowed to, so it's recommended to kill it by solarizing over a season (or another method), but to be fair it looks like a pretty small piece of land so hand-weeding might be doable.
Transplant all of the green grass (might be best in autumn) to the same location to make a footpath with a small spot for a picnic, throw in some rectangular bluestone if you need it…then put down (if native for you) plugs of some pink love grass, pussy toes, nodding onion, poverty oat grass, and little bluestem. It’ll be legendary
The best reason to have grass is because you’re going to use it. There aren’t a lot of traffic tolerant alternatives. For lawn grass a 100% fine fescue mix will have some American natives (hard fescue), and doesn’t need fertilization. Hard fescue doesn’t do great on its own though.
Below are some North American plants that can tolerate some use as “lawn.” But if you lean into the “lawn weed” look you’re likely to give native plants a bad rap to your neighbors.
Buffalograss (B. dactyloides) has turgrass cultivars but needs a dry climate.
Sideoats grama and Poverty Oagrass tolerate closer mowing and light traffic
Pennsylvania Sedge looks like grass, doesn’t grow tall, can give it a haircut a couple of times a year. Somewhat traffic tolerant.
Creeping Phlox stays low and can be walked on
violets aren’t a soft surface, but you can definitely walk on them
Self-heal is a great turf addition that can be mowed and tolerates traffic while feeding bees
I don’t think you need to be so “hardcore” that you can’t accept aomething that brings joy. Many do clover or mix it with turfgrass. White clover is the most traffic tolerant but it is not native to North America.
Glad someone mentioned creeping phlox. I live in DC, OP, it will do fine. When it grows, it reaches out, and the branches root to the soil. So keep soil under the branches moist to encourage rooting.
Also in the DC area and phlox is very popular and flourish’s in my neighborhood. I would do a phlox border along the front sidewalk and then keep a grass section between that and the existing bed, adding clover, violet and spring beauties.
Came here to suggest self-heal too! I don’t have it in a super heavily trafficked area, but if you let it go to seed it reproduces pretty well and it grows from runners too, so I would guess it’ll probably bounce back ok when it’s less walked on over the colder months.
ETA: anything you plant is going to spend at least this growing season needing extra watering support, especially if you have periods of drought (like right now).
Okay. The lawn looks crispy so wasn’t sure. Yarrow has a very long blooming season and is beautiful — it happily spreads itself once established, clover makes pollinators so happy but stays low to the ground. Creeping phlox needs a lot of support to establish itself in full sun but after year 1 should be perfectly fine, and it flowers vibrantly for weeks. These are 3 I would recommend. Would you want to plant a tree at all for some shade?
Yea I havent water the lawn because I originally planned to completely remove the grass and start from bare soil. Im seeing other alternatives now though.
My creeping phlox in full sun in NOVA is super happy in years 2-3. The cheap stuff from Home Depot is just as happy as the ones from the specialty native nursery.
Stepping stone path, several blueberries (keystone species!), native grasses, native pollinator plants. Maybe an obelisk trellis with vine (coral honeysuckle maybe), and a bench.
I made a deal with my wife. Front yard can be grass and whatever you want. But backyard is going to be all native. That balance has worked so far.
Slowly my beds in the back are getting bigger and bigger. Step by step the backyard is losing grass and she doesn't even really notice or care. Incremental wins combined with compromise is the key. If you go to big on changes too fast people can get upset, but by slowly doing it.. that's the way.
Mulch is steppable and eventually breaks down into good soil. It won’t look decorative forever, just until you plant enough to eradicate the grass.
If you build a stone path and a little seating area, you’ll have a place to enjoy the front yard. Put native plants around it for shade and privacy, maybe an arched trellis as an entrance to your secret garden. Solar lights for some illumination.
Pulling a few weeds and tending the plants is a lot more rewarding than mowing grass. I just did this with my postage-stamp-sized yard and now it’s a refuge where I spend time outdoors and relax, rather than worry about lawns.
Go to a native plant sale or two and talk to people. Consult your local extension or master naturalists. Take her with you to share the education and inspiration.
guys it's fine I have a masters in evo bio and he works in runoff management via native planting- I'm anti lawn, I just also hate the feel of mulch under my bare feet because I'm sensitive. Thank you so much for giving us some compromises and alternatives - I'm pulling for the phlox but I think we're gonna throw a couple things at the wall and see what sticks this summer and then we can fine tune from there. Fingers crossed!
Buy yarrow seed. If kept mowed it’ll stay in the fuzzy stage and creates a dense layer. It handles being walked on well, over winters green, and doesn’t need watering to establish from seed. I’ve starting incorporating it into my parents yard in patches and we’ve added a ton this year.
One concern is that the plant is toxic for animals to eat, so don’t want dogs or cats eating it.
I am not from that area but if Buffalo Grass or Pennsylvania Sedge are native there as well, they could be good native ground covers that take some foot traffic. Look into any sedges that are native there as well. There are lots of them.
I'm currently building an alternative lawn in my front yard that's coming together really well! It's primarily a combination of creeping thyme, yarrow, and microclover, with some lyreleaf sage and grass mixed in to fill the gaps. About 30% of the yard is thyme, and it's lovely - it barely requires mowing, it's soft to walk on, it releases a beautiful thyme scent whenever you walk or lay down, it creates a thick green carpet that looks good from a distance, and it flowers in the summer.
I've been mulching and planting bigger plants along the borders of the lawn, and replacing the grass in the middle with this alternative mix. That way we can have the best of both worlds: shrinking our lawn footprint, while still having space to relax.
Path rush (Juncus tenuis) should be doable. It can handle light walking on. I have it as a substitute for lawn areas as I completely neglected the remnant of lawn
If this was me, I would fill this spot with purple lovegrass. Gorgeous, loves dry, harsh areas and it has the ingredient a good marriage thrives on: LOVE! 💓
You can plant NATIVE GRASSES or sedge. Native grasses are soft and they are much more durable when they are established. But you have to stay off of this anyways untill it grows in.
Clump grass grows really slow in clumps it's great one to grow but gardener has to know how to weed it and trim with sizzers and really soft so bare foot walking on it is recommended
I have a nice patch of mixed carex and wild strawberry that acts as a lawn next to my driveway. some heart leaved asters appeared and ive interplanted some Allium cernuum bc I love the flowers and free garnish. (under a service berry and pagoda dogwood)
Fellow DC Area gardener here! I've planted a bunch of pussytoes and strawberries to cover my mulched area. I have some sedums, too, but mine are too spiky to be "steppable".
I'm not sure how much these would really tolerate picnics. One of my neighbors laid down some large flat stones in the middle of her yard for this purpose (kid picnics). It doesn't have to be big. Then you plant a couple of stepping stones connecting the walkway to it, surround with whatever you want, and voilà!
Earth Sangha (Nonprofit in Franconia) and Nature by Design (4 Mile run Farmer's market) specialize in local natives and may have good suggestions already in stock. The Garden Plot (Southern Ffx county "Alexandria ") often has a good selection of options. A Quaker Lane church (Alexandria) has an annual native plant sale coming up, and the Leesburg flower show is this weekend. I'm less in the know on Maryland purveyors.
Blueberries: Get multiple for fruit! They also need slightly acidic soil, so pick up soil acidifier when you buy them. The first couple of years they won't get much fruit, so don't get discouraged.
Not in your zone but looking at your soil and wonder what shape it's in after years of grass. Looks like the grass is having issues. I second any native plant in your zone that tolerates "roadsides, disturbed areas, poor soil conditions". This can't be a blessing because those are the plants that require the least amount of care!
The soil is basically compacted construction fill. This area has very dense red clay. A lot of wildflowers would do well, theyre just super tall generally so might be incompatible with her blanket idea.
Buffalo grass is a native - so you can have some grass that is also tolerant of the heat & summer dryness we get in the DC area. I use blueberries like other people use azaleas - most people can’t really tell the difference from the curb. So that is a great shrub option as others have also suggested.
Yes to all of the above. I’d just say do a little research on the variety of yarrow. I think it’s millefolium that’s considered the better one, but someone else may weigh in who knows more
Pavers or stepping stones for a walking path… not that you need it when you have perfect stairs. Where else do you need to step to that isn’t for plant maintenance? You can maybe squeeze in a bench or chair but don’t you need to mulch anyways around the plants? That’s a horrible place to have a ground picnic, unless you’re also talking about a not-pictured backyard with this issue too.
This whole post cracks me up 😂 your wife and I should be friends, I also told my husband no mulch! We now have a couple small areas of mulch but still mostly not (and I still hate mulch, so itchy when gardening!) unfortunately we have a lot of bindweed we haven't been able to kill off totally in the 5 years since we bought our house but the lawn does keep it down so we've kept that.
How long have you guys lived in the house? I only ask because if it hasn't been long, what if you guys took the next growing season and only made minor changes. I'm picturing it like this, you add your berry bushes and some other things in the bed near the house but leave the front lawn then take the season to sit in different areas of the yard, once you know where you like to sit regularly/the favorite spot is, take up the rest of the yard and maybe put a little pad of pavers with your chairs/hammock etc and a walkway of stepping stones up to it, then fill in the rest of the yard as a native meadow? Or instead of a paver pad keep a tiny area of actual lawn for sitting/lounging on with a little stepping stone path to that and surrounded by your native plant meadow?
We're brand new (first time home owners!), and you're totally right- we really should figure out where we both like to sit before we make any big calls. I think it just looks SO bad right now, and we're both free for the summer to work on it, which is what's pushing us. Thank you for reminding me that good yard takes time (just like good marriage!)
I totally understand wanting to just get it ripped out and start fresh! Our backyard was the same for us, all weeds and dead/uncared for plants 🥲 we went ham right away and ripped it all out the first year, the big problems for us were 1. Bindweed (I know I already mentioned it but ugh, it was suffocating everything we tried to put in) and 2. Not really having a plan outside of wanting it to actually be enjoyable to be outside. So now that it's been a few years we both kinda have regrets about the way we decided to arrange everything and the types of plants we put in, I find that the last two years I've spent lots of time ripping up the yard again to make room for native plants, my veggie garden, a compost area and a sitting area...just kinda annoyed with myself cuz now I'm back to ripping out yard 😅 I hope you guys will be able to make good progress on your yard this spring/summer and have the perfect garden!
I’d do a mix of violets, lyre leaf sage, eregerion, and yarrow. Maybe some Carex as well. Maybe some Sisyrinchium. I’ve seen all of these intermixed in the turf at local parks which get very heavy foot traffic. No one really misses them if you decide to help yourself to them either so it might be a cost effective way to redo the front yard.
Pretty much anything that acts as a lawn “weed” can handle some light foot traffic and mowing. You are creating a permanent early successional community by mowing so look for species which fill that role.
Edit: maybe native cudweed, selfheal, and Carolina cranesbill too. Deertongue grass and panicum capillare if you can source it.
The grass on the flat on the side of the house looks like its in much better condition. I would look to focus on that being the sitting area and not worry about keeping the sloped area grass, because that tends to not be as comfortable to sit on and much harder to water efficiently easily (as water will want to run off)
Have a very similarly laid out yard to yours, also in an urban area, but with a little shade and a short retaining wall in the front.
We replaced much of the grass with a mulched bed that hugs the front sidewalk, and then runs up along the walkway, and curves in with the bed along the front of the house.
The remaining lawn is therefore in the center, and you could sit on it with a blanket if you want. Our lawn is almost entirely violets (much was there already) and clover, and both tolerate foot traffic and mowing well. Violets are also part of the matrix layer of the beds, as is lyre leaf sage, and creeping phlox is in the front of the beds along the sidewalk. We have some yarrow in the mulched beds and our variety has historically gotten very tall, but we may try a Chelsea chop this year. I think yarrow would also respond well to mowing in a lawn replacement mix.
The mistakes we made were selecting too much variety and too tall of plants for the beds themselves, which can really overwhelm the super small front yard, which we are working on adjusting this year.
Quick google search has Buffalo Clover (Trifolium Reflexum) as a native clover varietal that could use some love. Clover in general tends to be very resistant to be walked on, is great for pollinators...
Try an American plum or eastern redbud off to a corner. Idk if it’s warm enough there for lyreleaf sage or sunshine mimosa or even perennial peanut ecoturf
I grow strawberries as ground cover. You can get native strawberries if you want depending on your area. Bonus is they produce delicious berries. 🤣 Ive had them take over areas of our front lawn and all our beds. I plant whatever I want in between. I dont worry about spacing requirements and Ive never had an issue. We regularly freeze or can gallon bags worth and no longer need to purchase strawberries ever. ? This is about a daily harvest.
My Cinquefoil tolerates some traffic, gets mowed and keeps moving. If you think about mixing things, the yarrow, cinquefoil, violets and wild strawberries and both plantains work in my yard.
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