Lawns into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape

As the planet experiences ecological destruction on an unprecedented scale, many of us are asking the question, what can I do? In this book, landscape designer Owen Wormser builds a case for growing more meadows, and then tells us how.

Allowing a lawn to be reclaimed by native grasses and flowers creates healthy habitats for birds and insects. Meadows introduce ecological diversity with very little effort, and can take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And they can soothe the soul, producing the kind of natural beauty that returns year after year.

By contrast, lawns are an environmental nightmare. As with any monocrop, a lawn requires massive amounts of inputs that burden the environment, ranging from unfiltered fossil fuels to the side effects produced by herbicides to the pollution caused by fertilizer runoff.

The author provides a simple and practical guide to cultivating your own organic and sustainable meadow, no matter where you live. He’ll draw from what he has learned growing up off the grid in Maine and working professionally to help people cultivate regenerative landscapes. The book includes before and after photos of different types of meadows, and resources that can make meadow building easy and accessible.