While in Amsterdam last month, I walked around looking at doorways and thought: “Who needs a front yard anyway?”

Enough front yard for me

Or perhaps:

Also enough

At home, I feel oppressed by most of my yard. My house sits on a 66′ x 150′ Northfield original town lot which is a not huge parcel in a walkable neighborhood near downtown Northfield. Pretty modest by recent development standards, you might say.

Still, there’s too much useless space which demands mowing or weeding without offering much in the way of compensation. The front yard is particularly unnecessary, but I don’t live in a place which makes an Amsterdam-style front entrance possible. I’m thrilled, though, to see articles like Lawns are a Soul-Crushing Time Suck since that pretty much sums up my thinking about the grassy party of my yard.

Some people just stop mowing and let nature reclaim their yard (and face the consequences – Northfield also has ordinances about weeds and tall grass, although “planned landscaping” is excluded). I took a more intentional path (in the back yard) and planted my little prairie (thanks Prairie Moon Nursery for the seed mix) after building a small addition trashed some of the grassy bits.

My little backyard prairie keeps evolving as the grasses and flowers reseed themselves or adapt to the light and soil conditions. Unlike the grass bits, my prairie is filled with honeybees and butterflies and bunnies; it requires no mowing, almost no weeding and is interesting in all seasons. Every year we reclaim a bit more yard from mowable grass; perhaps the front yard will be next.

Little Prairie by the House – the only part of the yard I like