Re-Meadowing in Your Backyard

February 26, 2025

By Christine DuBois, Member, Southeastern Pennsylvania Group, Delaware County; Editor, Bird Beat, the e-newsletter of Bird Town Pennsylvania

The scientific evidence is in: the typical American short-turf lawn supports barely any wildlife. It’s an unhealthy place. But there’s a beautiful solution: re-meadowing part or all of your property, no matter how much or little space you have. Re-meadowing requires effort and patience—but the payoff is magical!

Native-plant meadows offer many environmental benefits. Robust native meadows don’t require herbicides, insecticides, or fertilizers, which saves you money and time and protects humans and wildlife from toxins. For example, because fertilizer run-off leads to dangerously polluted waterways, removing  fertilizers helps keep our waterways clean.  Avoiding insecticides protects children from toxic exposures and reduces the worldwide die-off of insects. And if there do happen to be unhealthy chemicals reaching meadows, their root structures trap them in sediments. In this way, meadows filter out chemicals that otherwise might wash into our waterways. Chemical pollution in meadows ends up, instead, breaking down in the soil. In addition, the long, interlocking roots of native meadows do a better job of preventing soil erosion than the shallower roots of turf lawns. Finally, meadows provide safe hiding places, nesting sites, and food for beneficial insects, birds, small mammals, and the predators that need those animals for survival.

The work of re-meadowing depends on the specifics of your property, but it generally involves removing non-native turf grass, weeds, and invasive plants; choosing and buying native seeds or seedlings; loosening soil; planting; and watering during the seedlings’ vulnerable first 4-6 weeks.  Then the biggest work is just being patient!  The meadow will “do its own thing,” with some plants blooming the first year, and others not until the second or later years. In the first couple of years until the native plants have provided thick coverage of your space, you will need to monitor for invasives, but over time your meadow will do a good job of keeping them out.

The work might not even be as much as it seems because you’ll only need to mow your meadow once a year (mowing is necessary to inhibit tree and bush seedlings so the meadow doesn’t turn into forest). Mowing only once yearly of course saves you time and effort, and it has the added benefit of greatly reducing air pollution from a power mower. Gas-powered mowers in particular emit shockingly high amounts of carcinogens and air pollution.

Work is also reduced because grasses and sedges native to Pennsylvania are taller than non-native turf grasses. , If you missed a few roots after you’ve cleared out your turf grass, it’s alright. Once you’ve planted native grasses and wildflowers, the taller native plants will shade any non-native turf that comes back up, preventing it from thriving.  You won’t have to work to get those turf roots out.

The work and patience are rewarded with joys. Your property will become more interesting—there’s so much more happening there!  Your meadow can attract many species of butterflies and other fascinating insects, plus swallows, flycatchers, hummingbirds, bluebirds, voles, rabbits, foxes, hawks, and owls—among many other possible creatures—all keeping each other in ecological balance. If you’re attentive, every day will bring something new. And natural meadows are beautiful, with colorful native plants flowering in different seasons. You will have the satisfaction of having done something good for the creatures we share this planet with, all while enjoying a parade of plant and animal life right before you, on your own property.


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This blog was included as part of the March 2025 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!