Guys, as the person who started no lawns on Reddit (and here) my yard is a disaster lol. I work outside all day and the last thing I want to do when I get home is yard work. That being said, I removed a bunch of invasives from my yard Monday and I’m working on a plan to tackle a corner of my yard the way I’ve always wanted to in NoLawns style with native plants. I’m always open to suggestions for the Chicago area!
I’m in the PNW so we don’t have a lot of overlap in native species, however I can recommend selfheal. Selfheal is a great ground cover that’s native to much of the US (including Cook Co). If you let it grow it gets to be about a foot high, but you can also mow it and it’ll stay more grass height. It produces little purple flowers and is evergreen in my area (but probably not yours). I haven’t had any luck getting it to self propagate or germinate from seeds I’ve spread in the yard, but the plants I’ve germinated in pots (super easy) and planted in the ground have established and are still doing great years later. In other words, you can grow in amongst grass ala clover, or let it grow as a standalone plant.
But I guess that leads me to my main question, which is do you want to forego having a “lawn” entirely, or do you still want an area that can support foot traffic, but populated with lawn-substitute plants (eg native grasses and grass-companions like clover and selfheal)?
Ohh I’ll have to do some research on that that’s awesome. My end goal (not my current short term goal) is for my front yard to be a beautiful collection of native plants with intentional looking flower beds with a path from the sidewalk to the door and a path from the driveway to the side gate.
I haven’t thought far enough to know what type of path I want to do or anything like that yet. I currently have one flower bed left from the previous owner that I just cleared. I know I’m going to have more weeds before the season is over but I’m planning on starting some planting next spring.
I keep meaning to message the reddit mod group chat because the one lives very close to me and the other 2 actually have degrees in this stuff haha. I like that I started this and I’ll the least qualified 😂
A great resource to get you started on native/pollinator plants is Xerces society. They have two plant guides for your area: https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/monarch-nectar-plants-midwest and https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists/native-plants-for-pollinators-and-beneficial-insects-midwest. You can cross-reference these guides with the USDA Plants database (linked above) which has county-level data (zoom way in on the map) if you only want to plant species native to your county.
It can be difficult to find some native plant species at nurseries, in which case I source seeds online and plant those instead. Sometimes they don’t work out (poor germination) but seeds are so much cheaper than buying plant starts so it’s still more frugal even if half of the species you buy are unable to germinate. It’s best to source seed as locally as possible (a company based in Chicagoland, or at least WI, IL, or IN).
You’re wonderful, thank you!
Making a mental note to add this to the wiki too lol
If you do, the full Xerces plant lists database (all US regions) is here https://xerces.org/publications/plant-lists
And the plants database is here https://plants.usda.gov/home