Our Lawn Became a Meadow

Last fall, my husband and I tore out our front lawn and planted wildflowers. Our neighbors thought we'd lost our minds. One of them asked politely if we were "going for a look."

All winter, it looked like a patch of mud. In early spring, little green shoots came up, and we couldn't tell weeds from flowers. My husband kept asking if it was working.

By May, it was. Black-eyed Susans, purple coneflowers, poppies, blue cornflowers and wild bergamot covered the whole yard, three feet high and swaying in the breeze. Bees came by the hundreds. Then butterflies. Then a family of goldfinches that hang upside down from the seed heads.

Strangers now slow their cars to look. A kindergarten class came on a field trip. The neighbor who asked about "going for a look" asked for seeds. This morning, I counted eleven kinds of bees. I've never been so happy to stop mowing.