TWIN CITIES, Minn.—Pollinators, especially bees, are critical for producing more than one-third of our food products, according to the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA). Bee-pollinated commodities account for $20 billion in annual U.S. agricultural production. 

But, faced with loss of habitat, pesticides, and other issues, pollinators are in trouble. 

Bee lawns, a mixture of turf grass and low growing, pollinator-friendly flowers, are a great help for bees and other pollinators. Many plants growing in yards now are appropriate: Dutch white clover, dandelions, creeping Charlie, bees like them all. 

A new spending program approved by Minnesota lawmakers in 2019, called Lawns to Legumes, sets aside $900,000 annually to pay homeowners who replace traditional lawns with bee-friendly wildflowers, clover, and native grasses. The program is a collaboration between Blue Thumb, the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources (BWSR), and Minnesota residents to establish residential pollinator habitat.

“You can maintain a bee lawn just like you would any other lawn,” said James Wolfin, a sustainable landcare manager at Metro Blooms. “You can mow it, you can irrigate as frequently or infrequently as you like, and it will operate fine.” 

A bee lawn can be an entryway for people to create pollinator habitat, said Marla Spivak, University of Minnesota Extension Entomologist. A restored prairie might look messier than a typical garden does.

“I think this is a nice way for people to understand that the monoculture of a grass, of a lawn, of a turf, doesn’t meet pollinator needs,” Spivak said. “A bee lawn doesn’t need to be just dandelions or creeping Charlie or other what people consider weedy species, although dandelions are good for bees. We tried to find flowers that would bloom, and you could continue to manicure the lawn.”

In Minnesota, that mix is fine fescue, a Northern climate state grass, (other states have different varieties they can use), Wolfin said. Then they incorporated other species such as creeping thyme and self-heal (a low-growing perennial). 

“The subject of my master’s project was to determine what bees use bee lawns,” Wolfin said. “More than 50 species used Dutch white clover, and when we incorporated other plants like self-heal and creeping thyme, we saw over 60 species of bees that utilized bee lawns.”

Spivak added, “One of the best flowers that used to be in our lawns all the time was white clover. That flower brings in so many kinds of bees. When you were a kid, did you worry about bee stings? You paid attention, but they were out there, and you got stung, but it was just part of life.”

Finally, bee lawns are an excellent way for people to start “re-wilding” their yard, but in an entry-level sort of way, Spivak said.

For information on how to install a bee lawn visit https://bwsr.state.mn.us/l2l