A "weedy" yard

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

A big patch of Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia) brightens my backyard. The white flowers sprinkled throughout are a form of this species known as the Confederate Violet (V. sororia forma priceana). I have encouraged violet proliferation by just not mowing them off while in flower, so they can set fruit. It's worked well and I've got scores of purple jots brightening the turf grass that remains. How this native violet could be considered a "weed" is beyond me (although a "weed" is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose). Moreover, spraying toxic chemicals to destroy them, in favor of a flawless emerald blanket of nonnative turf grass is crazy, in my opinion.

I made this shot of this Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) last April in one of my violet patches. I've seen these woodpeckers in the violets a few times, and I suspect they are hunting ants. Ants are major dispersers of violet seeds, and ants are a major part of a flicker's diet. If having a "weedy" violet-filled lawn means flickers, I'll take it.

This scene is even cooler than the violet explosion, to me. This area is the back half of the backyard (roughly one-quarter to one-third of ALL my remaining "yard"), and not so long ago it was all nonnative turf grass. About four or five years ago, I noticed clumps of a native sedge called Common Wood Sedge (Carex blanda) popping up back here. This is one of our more opportunistic native sedges (there are a few nonnative sedges) and I don't know how it got started here. It may be that I tracked back seeds of the sedge from one of my forays. No matter, it is there, and I adjusted the mowing regime to accommodate it. I just waited until the fruit (perigynia, in sedge-speak) were fully ripe, and then mowed it. The mower broadcast the hard, bony seeds (achenes, in sedge-speak) all over the place, and it worked. Now, 90+% of this part of the "lawn" is now native sedge. That's all I did.

In this shot, the sedge is in full flower. The tannish-brown spikes sticking up everywhere are the staminate (male) flowers. The pistillate (female) flowers are lower on the plant. The sedges only reach four or five inches in height. Unless I learn otherwise, there is no reason to routinely mow this area anymore. The sedge is the perfect height, in my opinion. I'll probably just mow it once annualy, late in the season. At least that's my plan for now. I'm also going to transplant some of the sedges to other parts of the lawn and hopefully get the entire backyard to become a blanket of Common Wood Sedge, interspersed with other various native flora.

While the sedge lawn may, to some eyes, look a bit coarser than the manicured nonnative turf grass that we've been programmed to plant, manage, and cherish, I think the sedge lawn is a vast improvement. Another benefit is that invertebrate life forms have spiked tremendously. The sedge forms a duff layer that seems to be far more conducive to animal life than that of sterile turf grass. One barometer of success is the sheer number of fireflies displaying in summer. Last year they had expanded to the point of dazzling. It was like a laser light show back there. Viewing them from a second-story window reveals that the displaying beetles stay almost entirely over my backyard, with little drift into the neighbors' yards (most of them manage for turf monocultures). Firefly larvae are ground dwellers and predatory, feeding on various small animal life. I would say that the sedge supports vastly more of a duff layer food web, thus the huge spike in fireflies.

If you'd like to shrink your lawn, experimenting with Carex blanda might be worth a try. I haven't researched where one might obtain it, but I think some native plant nurseries carry it. Try googling "Carex blanda nursery" or something like that, and you should find some sources.