How A Yard With Little Lawn Can Still Attract Pollinators

If you think not having a lawn means you can't bring in bees, butterflies, and birds to your yard, you are happily mistaken. As pollinator gardening rises in popularity, more and more people want to join efforts to provide food and habitats for at-risk wildlife. But not everyone has an acre of yard to convert into a meadow. Some pollinator fans have little lawn at all. The good news is that with the proper strategy, you have the ability to bring more pollinators into your yard no matter what type of outdoor space you have, even if it's mostly a paved patio or a tightly fenced-in area. Creatively using containers or raised beds with the right types of plants allows gardeners to attract pollinators that have no or little lawn to work with.

Having a lawn is by no means a prerequisite for gardening for bees and butterflies. In fact, manicured grassy lawns that get mowed regularly do almost nothing to draw in pollinators. It's the perennial flowers, shrubs, and trees that provide food and habitat for beneficial insects and birds. That means that even if you have no ground soil to plant in because your backyard is covered with paving stones, you can still start a thriving pollinator garden by making use of makeshift planters atop whatever surface you're working with. And your efforts will go even further if you incorporate native plants into your selection to attract pollinators to your yard.

Raised beds are one of the small backyard landscaping ideas that will transform your space. You could add them to your yard whether you have just a little lawn or no lawn at all. Raised beds can be installed over hard surfaces like concrete, though you should add extra holes to the sides of the beds to make sure there's plenty of drainage. If you don't have room to add raised beds but still want to attract pollinators to your yard, reach for clay, concrete, wood, or plastic containers instead. A collection of decorative or no-nonsense pots will allow you to grow a flourishing pollinator garden and one day move your plants if needed, a useful tactic for those of us who are renting and can't make permanent changes to our yards.

When choosing plants, aim to use at least 70% native species for a pollinator-friendly yard. Some of the top native plants for attracting pollinators include butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), and New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). There's no worry if you have little lawn to plant these in the ground — all of these U.S. native plant can be grown in raised beds or containers. Just keep in mind that both raised beds and pots will dry out more quickly than plants growing in the ground, so keep a watering can or hose ready for periods of little rainfall.