A movement to replace lawns with native plants and trees has taken root in Missouri, pushing the state’s conservation rating with a group promoting native landscaping efforts to the top half of the fifty states.
The ranking comes from local property owners registering their fields, yards and other spaces on a website promoting the idea that half of all lawns should be replaced with native plants and trees to restore habitat for birds, bees and other small wildlife.
Homegrown National Park is a (pardon the pun) grassroots call to action… Kenn Boyle’s yard across from the tennis courts at Loose Park in KCMO is on the Homegrown map. Last year, he registered 4,700 square feet of native grasses, flowering perennials and shrubs in his front and side yards. Next up, he’ll replant much of his backyard.
After renovating his 1950s home several years ago, Boyle turned his attention to the landscape. He focused on plants that grow wild in Missouri after attending a talk by Deep Roots KC, a network of partners that promote native landscapes in the area.
“It never occurred to me that my old yard didn’t have biodiversity or nutritional value,” he says, “and the savings on water alone is significant.”
Boyle initially worked with a consultant to install some forty native species in a semi-formal design, including classic flowers like coneflower, coreopsis and penstemon, grasses like prairie dropseed and sedges, and bushes like witch hazel.
The KC Parks department is joining the movement after the City Auditor’s Office recommended more sustainable practices. Deep Roots helped advise them on how to begin planting more than two hundred acres of city property with natives.
Not long ago, Missouri’s conservation agency asked residents where they spent the most time experiencing nature. The answer? In their own yards. So it makes sense to create a landscape that supports the natural world.
Excerpted from Kansas City Mag article authored by Jill Draper published April 5, 2023 Read the complete article here: https://kansascitymag.com/news/inside-the-movement-that-wants-to-remake-kcs-outdoor-spaces-with-native-plants/?fbclid=IwAR20NBjsZPdtaSQa7i1IALuZEvxQrHK1PmbgINMjPtl6aepiHBMgBSKBZO4
