How we can assist

Great question! Most people want to create meadows on their land to benefit wild species like pollinators and songbirds, but which animals most benefit from a meadow depends on many factors. Some species like grassland birds will only consider nesting in a meadow of sufficient size, normally a few dozen acres minimum. But pollinators and other beneficial insects like fireflies can thrive in even a couple thousand square feet of meadow. Meadow composition (the plant species) and structure (how those plants are arranged) also influence which wildlife species are most likely to use the site. We work with landowners to help them set their management goals, identify opportunities to help conservation significant wildlife in the region and design meadows optimized for those purposes.

Meadows can look "messy," particularly in the first 1-3 years, but this is a normal and healthy part of creating these plant communities. We help landowners adhere as closely as possible to any such restrictions on appearance through careful plant selection tailored to get the most ecological value out of your meadow while respecting your local regulations and personal aesthetics.

Meadows usually take at least 3-5 years to mature, meaning most species are now old enough to flower and most are at their typical max height. Meadows can of course still look very attractive before this point and we thoughtfully select plants to add visual interest for people in the meadow's early stages, as well as food and shelter for pollinators and other wildlife.

Meadows are usually cut a few times in their first 1-2 growing years to ensure all species receive adequate light, especially those that are slow to grow tall. Some cuts must be performed higher than the 4-5" max height of many residential mowers or the meadow plants can be damaged. At small sites these cuts can be done by hand with a string trimmer, although beyond this scale a larger mower is usually needed. Fortunately, regular cutting of meadows is only necessary in the first few years, after which these plant communities might be cut once a year or less to ensure their long-term health. Those yearly cuts of a mature meadow can be performed with a normal lawn mower at normal cutting height (i.e., 5" or less) as long as the terrain allows.

The early stages of meadow creation can look different depending on how one chooses to remove the existing lawn or other vegetation, the composition of the meadow (i.e., which plant species are used), whether erosion control materials are used, as well as environmental factors like soil and light conditions, rainfall, etc. Once a meadow is planted, the site can look a bit messy in terms of unevenness among plant heights and spacing, as well as some persistent weed issues that can be overcome in time. We help landowners accommodate the "ugly duckling" years of a meadow's life by including species that provide colorful flowers while helping create favorable growing conditions for the longer-lived but slower to germinate and mature meadow plants. Companion crops can also help in this regard by creating a more lawn-like appearance while meadow plants are seedlings. Regardless, there are always some flowers the first year, and if this is a priority we can help landowners select the best plant species and management methods to add color as early as possible in a meadow's life.

No. There are multiple techniques available to clear lawns, old fields and other vegetation to create a meadow, and herbicide is just one of these options. However, and this may sound counterintuitive, but in many situations herbicide causes less damage to biological communities like soil organisms than the alternative methods used to clear vegetation like tilling and scouring. This is why herbicides remain in our toolkit. We work with landowners to identify the techniques they are comfortable using by providing the best possible scientific evidence of the effects of each technique on biodiversity, long-term meadow performance and costs.

While we try to not make definitive statements like "never," meadows do not appear to increase the density of deer ticks (i.e., the species that spreads Lyme disease to humans). Obviously, there are exceptions, but according to the scientific literature and our own nearly two decades of research, deer tick populations do not increase because of meadow creation. These ticks prefer more humid conditions than are typically found in open habitats, meaning they tend to be in or near the woods. Anywhere near a woodland edge is more likely to support deer ticks regardless of being a lawn or meadow.

Snakes may visit meadows to hunt for slugs and other prey but these animals need sun to warm themselves, so they may spend more time in the lawn than in a meadow!

Mosquitos and other biting insects are not particularly benefitted by the presence of a meadow. They can occur anywhere there is sufficient standing water to lay their eggs. We have not noted or heard about increases in these pests near the meadows we have created. Anecdotally, it is more likely that the richness of beneficial predatory insects that live in meadows but not lawns may help suppress populations of unwanted species like mosquitos, midges and other biting insects.

Meadows do indeed support many small mammal species like mice, voles and other rodents, as well as insectivores like shrews. The mice that invade our homes are mostly native deer mice and white-footed mice, as well as the exotic house mouse. These rodents like to be in our homes and do not need high quality habitat like meadows to persist – they just go into your house! The small mammals meadows can support are species that tend not to try to get into our homes and are instead content to live in a beautiful meadow created for their benefit.

Absolutely! When available, bees usually collect nectar and pollen from the same flowers, making pollen a good proxy for which flowers were used to create honey and in what proportions. We have participated in pollen trapping research to directly address this question, and honeybees do indeed take a great deal of their floral resources from meadow flowers, which in turn lend their characteristic tastes, aromas, colors and textures to the honey. And of course, native bees also greatly benefit from the abundance of flowers and shelter available in meadows. Moreover, we intentionally include known associate wildflowers to benefit specialist bees in the regions where we work.

Some meadow plants may be able to spread to other areas of your property, but regular mowing will control any meadow plants that establish in nearby lawns and none of the species we use are known to become weedy in gardens or the surrounding landscape, like your neighbor's property. Most need specific conditions under which to germinate and take years to reach maturity, making them unlikely to become weeds outside the meadow.

Similarly, a well-stewarded meadow should be kept free of the common invasive weeds of a region, minimizing the chance these sites will become sources of weeds elsewhere on the property or landscape.

Of course! And we encourage it. It is best to create paths to avoid repeatedly trampling the meadow plants but not getting into your meadow to enjoy it would be a shame! Why not also add a picnic table, sitting area or sculptures? Our goal is to help you create and understand these plant communities, not make a nature preserve on your land in which you are no longer welcome.

In the humid Northeast meadows are not known to be fire hazards, especially in the growing season when plants are green. Meadows are often surrounded by "unburnable" features like green lawn grass, asphalt, etc. that help contain a fire if one were to occur. In winter when most meadow plants go dormant, they become more flammable, but again there are no reports of these created meadows becoming fire hazards in the Northeast. Regardless of the low risk of meadows burning, we still take this issue into account when designing meadow layouts relative to buildings and other sensitive features.

Yes! And many of the plants we use to create meadows have culinary and medicinal value. If growing an edible meadow is a goal, we are happy to work with you to design a plant composition that is as sustainable as possible so you can harvest from it for years to come with as little upkeep as possible. Pollinators come to meadows for food after all, so why not humans? And, while this concept may sound odd, we have helped people create "smell meadows" full of fragrant species. Using our sense of smell is one of the best ways to remember things we experience, so teaching kids about plants whose flowers they can smell is a great way to learn how to identify these plants and understand their ecology in a meadow.

The maximum size of a meadow is not limited by nature but by how much work one is willing to put in to maintain the site as a meadow. In the humid Northeast, most uplands would be forested if not for millennia of careful disturbance regimes managed by Native Peoples to keep these sites largely free of woody plants. The same is true today – if one has the time and money to periodically burn, mow or graze meadows, then a meadow could be thousands of acres. The largest sites for which we provide design and management guidance are usually in the 2,000 acre range, and these are mostly dedicated grassland bird habitat, solar collection facilities and extensive mixed-use livestock grazing operations.

A meadow can also be very small and still generate important ecological benefits at this scale, like providing food and shelter to pollinators and other beloved insects like firefly larvae. The smallest meadows we have created are around 2,000 square feet, sometimes even less. The techniques we use to create and manage meadows may change with scale, but the goal is always to get the most ecological value possible from every square inch of land available. Even if your site is too small to support grassland birds, you can still create an important food source for them by supporting a meadow designed for beneficial insects.

Meadows are self-sustaining ecosystems once mature that do not need to be regularly reseeded. Over time, plant composition can shift as long-lived but longer to mature species begin to dominate. Eventually woody plants can colonize beyond the point where mowing, fire or grazing can control them and some areas of the meadow need a little extra seed to ensure unwanted plants like invasives do not colonize in the meantime. Meadows usually last 20-30 years without significant intervention like full reseeding. Most importantly, the efforts needed to ensure meadows continue functioning as intended over the first couple decades are designed to be as cheap and easy as possible.