How to Kill Your Lawn

The Great American Yard is going native.

- By Jesse Will

GENTLEMEN, lay down your lawnmowers. There’s a new school of thought taking root—an idea that would scrap the Saturday afternoon-killing mow and end the merry-go-round of chemical applications. How? Tear out the grass and replant all or part of your yard with native flora, which requires less water and less maintenance in the long run, and can foster a more functional ecosystem, to boot.

Residential lawns—which we have 40 million acres of—are thirstier than any agricultural crop. Nationwide, we use 9 billion gallons of water for landscape irrigation each day (and as much as half of that amount is lost to inefficiencies). Many homeowners also spray with broad-spectrum insecticides, which, in addition to their health risks, can kill off the insects responsible for pollinating 90 percent of all flowering plants.