On 27/8/2004, pslott wrote:

>with my lawn that has brought in more variety in insects and that I hope
>will bring more variety in birds eventually.
> Alan spread a bag of "Eco-Turf" seed on our small lawn last Oct. 15

For attracting a variety of insects, you'll do better by using native
plants as your ground cover. It turns out that the brand-name Ecoturf
has only one species that's sorta native in the pacific northwest:
yarrow--and even that is the european subspecies/genotype. Most other
'ecological' seed blends are similarly non-native to any particular
area of the world, and with many you have to watch out for invasive and
even noxious weeds.

Ecoturf and relatives (barring the ones that contain serious weeds) are
certainly an improvement over a standard grass lawn in terms of
water/fertilizer/pesticide/mower exhaust, and to some extent bugginess,
but native bugs are generally happiest with native plants. A native
plant species will typically have direct relationships with 50 other
species, including diseases, 'pests', pollinators, etc. A non-native
plant typically has relationships with two or three, maybe up to ten
other species.

There aren't any true native seed mixes available yet for a variety of
reasons, including the wide variety of mini-habitats that need to be
catered to. Washington Native Plant Society is contemplating several
mixes, probably sold as blend-your-own separate seed packets. They may
come up with something by this autumn's seed & bulb sale, depending on
what's available. Keep an eye on <http://wnps.org/> (wnps.org for the
web-readers) for the sale date and location, and drop by to see if they
succeeded yet. Even if they haven't, there will be a good selection of
buggy plants and lots of good advice for what to put where.

One combination often suggested for Puget Sound sunny, well drained
areas, though generally done with young plants, not seeds (I'm hoping
to get this put into my planting strip this fall):

A base of:

kinnikinnik
Carex inops and C. canescens (sedges)
Fragaria chiloensis (coast strawberry)
Erigeron peregrinus (Philadelphia fleabane, normally tall, but
tolerates mowing)
yarrow (sigh, the true native subspecies is almost impossible to find,
and wouldn't keep it's genotype in the city anyway, so many of us have
become pragmatic about the european)
Camas quamash if you can put off mowing until they've bloomed (late april?)

with a few other perennials to taste.

If you have some shade and it's not too summer-parched, the
possiblities expand quite a bit. A lawn like this wouldn't take as much
traffic as a turf lawn, but anyone hoping for birds is unlikely to
spend much time playing soccer on the bird food :-)


Possibly the champion bug attractant, though not lawn material:

Goldenrod, Solidago canadensis. An early study on an Illinois prairie
found that canadian goldenrod flowers attract: 50 bees, 78 wasps, 60
flies, 4 butterflies, 4 moths, 14 beetles, and 3 bugs. They weren't
even counting the critters that eat the leaves, live in the stems, chew
on the roots... If you have a spot for it, it's wonderful. It's my
favorite plant for trying to learn close up photography because there's
always something interesting crawling around in it. Just don't feed or
water it or it may take over! (There are a couple of shorter Solidage
species that might be worth experimenting with in a lawn/short 'meadow'
but I haven't tried them--yet.)
--
Allyn Weaks allyn at tardigrade.net Seattle, WA Sunset zone 5
Pacific NW Native Wildlife Gardening: http://www.tardigrade.org/natives/
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public." -- Theodore Roosevelt