Why many NJ lawns are wildly overgrown (and why that's a good thing)

Mark Mucci heard about the "No Mow May" social media trend just this year, but he and his wife have a long history of letting flowers grow through their lawn in Maplewood, Essex County.

Mucci is part of a growing group of New Jersey homeowners who are transforming their lawns — long considered dead zones for insects and animals — into ripe habitat for bees and an assortment of wildlife.

"We are not particular about what's in the lawn," said Mucci, 62. "We don't try to make it antiseptically all the same grass."

Instead, Mucci and his wife allow a section of their yard to grow long each year so they can enjoy the purple and white flowers that rise within the grass.

"When No Mow May started happening, I said what the heck. Let everything just keep growing," he said.

The "No Mow May" movement is encouraging homeowners to allow their lawns to grow long and flower in spring, thereby giving bees an early start on their season.

Researchers estimate that the portion of land in the United States that is devoted to lawns is three times larger than the area given over to growing corn, according to NASA. Lawns — residential, commercial and golf courses — are the nation's largest, single irrigated crop by area, according to the agency.

Yet, lawns provide almost no ecological value, said Catherine N. Duckett, an entomologist at Monmouth University.  

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"Lawns are bad for pretty much everything except Canada geese," said Duckett, who has studied both bees and specializes in beetles. "Most of the grasses that we use in lawns are not from around here. They require a lot of water, fertilizer and fossil fuels to keep them trim and looking great."

Other than being food for Japanese beetles and Canada geese, grass does little to help New Jersey's environment, she said.

The best lawns for wildlife are spaces that contain violets, dandelions, clover and what many homeowners would consider flowering weeds, Duckett said. At her home in Monmouth County, Duckett does not keep a grass lawn, but one made of violets and ground cover plants, which she does not mow.

As a result, the entomologist said she has counted at least five native bee species, including carpenter bees and bumblebees, that gather on the flowers in her yard.

"There is no place for a (grass) lawn in a healthy planet, except as a playing field and on places that get heavy foot traffic: so baseball fields, soccer fields, university pathways," she said.

Many native bee species in the eastern U.S. lived in mostly deciduous forests and were active predominantly in the spring, when wildflowers would grow before trees shaded out of the forest floor, said Rachael Winfree of Rutgers University, who studies pollinators and the role of pollination within the greater ecosystem.

The No Mow May movement is timed to benefit these native species, who prefer spring flowers, she said. Many other types of wildflowers — types that grow along roadsides or in meadows — do not bloom until summer, past when many of New Jersey's roughly 450 native bee species are active, Winfree said.

"Even if you mow every other week, it makes a really big difference," she said. "The other thing that makes a huge difference is… not using insecticides or herbicides. In particular, some of the insecticides that are legally labeled for homeowner use… are really, really toxic to bees. And not using those can make a huge difference."

Many wild plants as well as farm-grown fruits and vegetables are dependent on bees for pollination, Winfree said. 

"Almost 90% of the wild plant species in the world need pollination by insects or other animals," she said. "So if we lost all the pollinators, we basically lose 90% of the plants."

Duckett, of Monmouth University, said scientists are worried by large declines in bee populations, not just in New Jersey, but across the nation.

"One-third of the calories that you consume come from plants that are pollinated (by bees and insects)," she said. 

Outside of their integral place in the food web, bees are beautiful in their own right, said Joanne Pannone of the Central Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy organization. Pannone, now in her 70s, said she raised honeybees up until a few years ago.

Pannone said she would watch the bees dance at the hive to communicate the location of food to their colony members. 

"It's something that everybody needs to realize," she said. "Without them or without bugs, it's (harming) the food chain. You know we have to respect the food chain."

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers Brick, Barnegat and Lacey townships as well as the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than a decade. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.