Take a closer look at the lawn and you’ll realise it’s alive! Birds, small animals, and tiny insects bustle between blades of grass while countless soil organisms live in the root zone of perennial lawn grasses. Stable lawn ecosystems establish themselves over the years.
Hidden Life
While we enjoy the surface of our lawns as a place to relax and play, other lifeforms thrive in hidden spaces across the lawn. Small beetles, ants, woodlice, and tiny spiders scurry between the densely growing blades to find shelter. These creatures have specialised slender bodies, helping them thrive in the short grass. Birds and small mammals such as hedgehogs, mice, or moles use the open space in the garden as a rich food source or a landing place.
Trillions of living beings
Beneath the grass, trillions of creatures live in the dark soil. Earthworms, millipedes, mites, bacteria and fungi convert dead organic matter into valuable humus. They live in a perfectly coordinated community with the roots of the perennial lawn grasses. The diverse interplay of all these beings permanently improves soil fertility and builds stable water-storing structures. The fitter this underground ecosystem is, the healthier the plants that grow on it.
The futile search for bees on lawns
According to biological taxonomy, lawn grasses belong to the sweet grass family. Meadows and pastures often consist of this grass type and form the basis of today’s global food supply alongside some of the world’s oldest crops, such as cereals and rice.
Sweet grasses depend on the wind for pollination and do not attract nectar-seeking insects. Therefore, searching for bees, bumblebees or butterflies on lawns is in vain. However, lawns still play a very important role in our ecosystem.
Researchers have identified a multitude of diverse soil organisms under perennial lawns across the globe. The biological activity under lawns is significantly higher compared to soils without vegetation and is comparable to that under herbaceous meadows*.
*Thriving Ecosystems - The Lawn Institute
If a lawn is allowed to dry out and is not adequately fertilised with a balanced organic-mineral mix, the organisms living in its soil will die. This is disastrous because, in their diversity, they make a significant contribution to maintaining soil fertility and ultimately the lawn’s overall health. Rebuilding a colony of biodiverse organisms once they have died off takes a very long time and requires much additional effort.
It is worthwhile to keep lawns intact through consistent good care, as over time, the area can fully establish its positive contribution to its environment and biodiversity. Maintaining a healthy lawn for several years enables the development of a stable lawn ecosystem.
