Why convert your standard turf to an alternative lawn?

An alternative lawn such as a bee lawn or meadow lawn can provide many benefits. These include providing foraging and nesting spaces for insects, reducing the need for maintenance (watering, fertilizing, mowing), and a greater resiliency to flooding and drought.

Check out these alternative lawn resources:

• Lawns to Legumes: Your Yard Can BEE the Change from the Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources
• Bee lawn information can be found on the University of Minnesota Bee Lab website
• Environmentally friendly lawn care tips from the City of Bloomington
• What is a Bee Lawn? from the Minnesota State Horticultural Society

Who May Apply?

Residents, non-profits, businesses, schools, and local goverment units (LGUs) may apply. The project area must be located on property owned by the applicant.

Maximum Grant Award

• Residents: Up to 75% of cost up to $500.
• Non-profits: Up to 75% of cost up to $1,500
• Businesses, schools, and LGUs: Up to 50% of cost up to $1,500

The GOAL of a Turf Alternative Lawn is to decrease inputs (watering, fertilizers, pesticides, mowing) and to increase infiltration of stormwater runoff.

Approved Uses of Funds

In most cases, simply stopping use of lawn herbicides and fertilizers will change your turfgrass into an alternative lawn. You may consider helping things along by adding seeds for plants such as self-heal that provide pollinator habitat. Other materials related to creating a turf alternative lawn, such as a bee lawn or meadow lawn, qualify for grant funds.

Maximum Allowable Costs

To maximize value per dollar but still allow flexibility for grantees in materials selection, maximum allowable cost has been set.

Eligibility for In-Kind Credit or Professional Maintenance Funds

This project type does not qualify for in-kind credit or professional maintenance funds.

Requirements

• Project size minimum is 100 square feet.
• The project must replace a traditional turf grass lawn or impervious surface with a bee lawn or other alternative lawn.
• You must agree to practice ecologically friendly maintenance. This means limiting chemicals and leaving plant material in place. This may also include waiting to mow until lawn is 4 inches tall and raising your mowing height to 3 inches or higher. Flowering dandelions and clover are especially important in early spring as they boost the limited supply of pollinator food sources.​​​​​

Maximize Your Grant Award

Because there tends to be a lot of variation in approaches to converting a turfgrass lawn into an alternative lawn, we do not have a standard scoring sheet for project applications.