Converting a grass lawn to native prairie grass (and how to grow your own grass plugs at home!)

I probably don’t need to tell you how bad lawns are for the environment–living in North America, they are non-native, a massive water suck, usually use chemicals to maintain, and provide ZERO ecosystem benefits! For these reasons, there’s a big movement to convert grass lawns over to native prairie grasses–but HOW do you do that, exactly? Is it best to seed or to use plugs? How do you get rid of the grass?

The answer is…there is no right answer! Solarizing, tilling, sod cutter, spraying–all of these are viable methods for removing the lawn. In our space we’ve used a tiller to remove the grass as it was the most accessible tool available to us and we choose not to spray chemicals on our grass, but that doesn’t mean that’s a WRONG way to do it, either–just not the way we chose to!

We used a combination of methods: we both direct seeded in native grass, and also planted our own buffalo grass plugs to fill in any gaps. We’ve done both methods at different locations around our property, for different reasons: areas where there is not much availability to overhead irrigation struggle to germinate with direct seeding for us in our hot, dry climate, so those areas usually get plugs. However, we find we get a thicker and more lush native prairie more quickly using seeding, especially in areas where we have access to overhead irrigation!

Remember to check YOUR area to find out what is native for you, and enjoy that lower water bill!