• Roots and Shoots: Meadows for the Masses

  • Sep 27 2024
  • Length: 4 mins
  • Podcast

Roots and Shoots: Meadows for the Masses

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  • Summary

  • "Gardens are not enough," says Janis Butler. Her review of the research shows that we can do more to support plants and insects by adding or converting lawns and gardens into meadows.
    "We need significant space for diverse species of plants and insects to interact," she says. Creating these ecosystems through meadows restores ground that has been lost to development and other environmental pressures.
    Butler, a Master Gardener and Master Forester volunteer, will be the opening presenter at a symposium on meadows scheduled for Sunday (Oct. 6) at Boscobel in Philipstown. She will focus on the relationship between insects and plants and why we need meadows in our yards.
    Meadows Matter: How to Create a Meaningful Meadow is a full-day program co-organized by seven groups and nonprofits. It will include presentations by landscape professionals and site visits. It's for anyone with a yard who wants to understand this style of planting, what it involves to create and care for, and why it can have huge benefits.
    We think about meadows as wild, open spaces that happen naturally. In landscaping terms, it's a style of cultivating plants. The working definition of a meadow that will be used at the symposium is "an open habitat or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs and other non-woody plants, largely composed of species native to the region and has limited human intervention."
    There isn't a required size or shape. It could be 10 feet by 10 feet or acres. What matters is the plants and maintenance, or non-maintenance. You leave it alone and don't mow regularly or add fertilizers. The plants are important because you want to create a habitat with nesting, food and shelter for wildlife and insects, including pollination opportunities.
    Erin Muir, co-founder of Figure Ground Studio, will discuss establishing a meadow with seeds or immature plants called plugs, although there isn't a right way. It depends on the site, how you prepare it and, to some extent, your level of expertise and budget. Muir has designed and created meadows for clients and in her yard. She has given me a tour of the latter, and it's rich in plants and insects.
    Now in its fifth season, Muir planted her meadow from seed after the family home was built in Philipstown. "It's about providing support for the more-than-human realm," she says. "We can do a lot if we make the pathway."
    Muir maintains the meadow with once-a-year mowing and, in the beginning, managing the invasive mugwort. The plants that dominated in the first year - coreopsis, rudbeckia, partridge pea - have given way to bergamot, joe pye weed, northern sea oats and other natives, demonstrating the dynamics of launching plant communities and seeing them evolve.
    The expectation that an expanse of lawn is the tapestry of a home is losing its hold as more people become aware of the need for biodiversity and are excited by the beauty of an alternative. Just this week, Margaret Roach wrote in The New York Times about a suburban couple who carefully turned their lawn into a meadow while managing it to avoid negative reactions from neighbors.
    Organizations like Homegrown National Park and Wild Ones offer resources on what to plant and design options. In Beacon, Bryan Quinn of One Nature, who will present at the symposium, has been collecting data for his Refugia Project, tracking the impact of the 150 gardens he and his team have designed and planted in Beacon.
    Quinn estimates that One Nature's gardens cover 52 acres, or 5 percent of the city. These contiguous spaces and the density give pollinators a fighting chance when so much land is developed or disturbed.
    Boscobel's lawn-to-meadow conversion makes it the ideal site for the symposium. "We're adding a meadow to diversify Boscobel's ecosystem and introduce important facets of Hudson Valley beauty, history and stewardship," said Jennifer Carlquist, the executive director. Seeded this spring, the planting is showing bursts of asters, goldenrod, sedge, partridge pea, min...
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