My neighbor HATES me because I've been converting my backyard into clover. We have fireflies, Butterflies, bees, bunnies, all sorts of wildlife. It smells beautiful, but we are an oasis amongst upper-middle class lawn zombies... Mowing, edging, pesticide spraying, weed killing zombies.

Meanwhile, I have milkweed, clover, chive, snapdragons, black eyed susans, grapes, raspberries, lilac, echinacea, chamomile, lavender, hydrangea, coreopsis, and salvia. I welcome wasps that eat pests, I buy bags of ladybugs, I compost... I'm really trying. It's only 1/4 an acre, but I'm trying.

Man im working so hard to be that yard, but its not as easy as just stop mowing!

Always on the lookout for invasives, poison ivy, tree sapplings (my yard isnt big enough to support any more trees without threatening the house), and other undesirables.

Then theres also the english ivy encroaching from the corner that I've pretty much given up on :/

My lack of mowing gives us a light show every summer night.

My yard is the only reason we have frogs and dragonflies.

Friendly reminder that lightning bugs need tall grasses present in addition to wildflowers and leaf litter. You can also improve their survival rates by removing artificial lighting or even just setting any safety lighting (like motion activated lamps) to their shortest "on" duration. Another obvious step is to avoid pesticides.

https://www.fws.gov/story/save-fireflies

Alright I'm going to need all of your suggestions as this is the project I'm working on right now.

A bought a small townhouse in Ontario 7 months ago and I have a tiny yard.

The yard had mostly grass, but had a little bit of moss, crab grass, and clover. There is a small garden, and many dirt patches in the yard.

I have spread clover seed in the yard, especially in the dirt patches.

Then I weeded the garden area, removed about half the rocks but left some in the garden, I have my mother coming over next month to help me pick local garden flowers, and I had to pull a tiny tree out because it was planted right beside the foundation of the building and would eventually cause damage.

What else should be added to the lawn? Should I be pulling out the crabgrass? What wildflowers are native to Ontario?

Lightning bug, eh? I smell a Pennsylvania native

Lightning bugs never existed where I live 😞 I didn’t realize they were real until my mid teens even

 #nolawns

Aren't those called fireflies?

Ha! This is me and my yard. Let’s go!

i'd never heard fireflies called lightning bugs before

Oh Lemmy, I saw all the lightning bugs in the trees last night, blinking fast as hell because of the high temperature, and I thought of you!

I was just discussing my raggedy-ass yard and it’s contribution to the local fauna.