This year my family and I decided to let our front yard grow up into a meadow…and to say that we’re excited about it would be an understatement.

click on the photos to enlarge them

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The backyard is where we spend almost all of our outdoor time. The deck is back there, the gardens are back there, the chickens are back there, the trees are back there, and it’s pretty much completely hidden from the road. It’s our little oasis (when the neighbors aren’t being too noisy, that is).

Aaaaand as for the front yard, it’s pretty much been wasted space.

Not only do we not spend much time out there (what if acquaintances see us from the road and want to randomly stop by for a 3-hour visit?? It’s happened before, and the fear has haunted us ever since), the grass tends to grow pretty poorly, and we’re left with uhh…fried grass, dirt, and weeds in random patches around the yard.

Except under the pear trees, where it’s shaded and lush and glorious.

So we finally decided to simply let it go.

And as soon as we did, I found a happy little patch of four-, five-, and six-leaf clovers in our soon-to-be-meadow, which we obviously took as a good omen (not that finding deformed clovers is a rarity for me, I seem to have inherited the sixth sense for clovers from my grampa, who also finds them everywhere🍀).

I must say, the whole “experiment” is going wonderfully so far.

Dad mows a path around the perimeter for us to walk around (and to hopefully keep the poison ivy and other bothersome plants out of our meadow…Oriental bittersweet shall be the death of me), and then the rest has simply been left to do its thing.

It’s amazing how many different grasses, plants, and “weeds” are thriving out there. And sure, half of them are not native plants, but it’s neither ours nor the plants’ fault that they’re here. I mean, we weren’t the dumb ones who brought them to America. So now they’re just happily bringing more butterflies, bees, and other helpful bugs to our yard.

Everything is currently reseeding like crazy, and it’s tall enough to blow gracefully in the wind — some grasses have even just managed to reach waist-high!

When one of our neighbors asked Mom if we’d be mowing our lawn soon since “no mow May” is over (something none of us were aware was a thing™), Mom simply smiled and waved. Because there’s nothing like bothering nosey neighbors by turning your yard into a wildlife habitat.

It’s all beginning to remind me of one of my favorite poems, Portrait by a Neighbour by  Edna St. Vincent Millay.

And of course, the new environment is already attracting more insects, birds, and animals, which is what we were hoping for.

The bluebirds have started to spend more time in our yard, and you can often spot turkeys and bunnies wading through the tall greenery. One morning we even saw a coyote run through, although it may have been more interested in our neighbors chickens than in our meadow.

Fireflies, spiders, dragonflies, and bumble bees are abundant, while the crickets sing almost constantly!

To add to the fun, Riley Mae recently found a free app called seek from iNaturalist, and we’ve been working to identify all of the plants and flowers growing in and around our little meadow.

Is it too much to hope for to be as knowledgeable about nature as a great sage by the time I die?? Riley Mae has already been teaching me and my family to identify birds and their songs for years now, so I think I’m on the right track.

Out of all the beautiful things out in our front yard, my favorite thing has to be the oxeye daisies that just started to bloom.

Years ago the daisies started popping up around the chicken pen in our backyard, and I requested that Dad skipped that spot in his weekly mowing. So over the years the daisies have continued to bloom and spread. This year I dug most of them up and transplanted them into the meadow. They didn’t seem to care about the move at all, and a few weeks later they opened up their pretty lil faces.

Although they may be another non-native plant, personally I’m pretty excited to see them continue to spread year after year ❤

blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium)