In addition to offering little-to-no habitat for pollinators, lawns also have other environmental costs. Turf grass lawns cover over 40 million acres in the United States, which is about 2% of its total continental land area. This makes turf grass the most common irrigated crop, covering more area than the next eight types of irrigated crops combined. To keep all that grass growing, 50 to 75% of the domestic water supply is used, adding up to over 20 trillion gallons a year. Lawns are also major sources of pollution from fertilizer and pesticide run-off—all for a type of landscape that doesn’t produce food or provide other critical economic benefits.

Because lawns cover a such large area and are a common part of the landscapes we encounter every day, converting those areas to native wildflower plots is both possible for people to do and impactful for pollinators’ survival.