Meet the Homeowners Spending Tens of Thousands to Let Their Lawns Go Wild
Within Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood, an enclave south of downtown where the median house listing price is just over $2 million, quintessential manicured American lawns roll out in front of historic brick bungalows, restored Victorians and contemporary new builds. Then there is Lisa Negri’s yard, which sits adjacent to her three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow where she’s lived since 2012. “It looks like nature," says Negri, 66, a retired engineer.
Roughly 50,000 plants comprising 92 species engulf her 0.14-acre lot, which until 2020 sported green lawn grass. She estimates the yard has cost roughly $75,000 for plants, bulbs, seeds and hardscaping. Negri’s creation, designed by Denver Botanic Gardens assistant curator of horticulture Kevin Philip Williams, rejects the time-honored status symbol of a tidy lawn in favor of a new luxury: the rewilded yard.
“Rewilding is returning land to a more natural state," says Allison Messner, co-founder and CEO of Yardzen, a landscape design company with clients nationwide. Rewilding a yard typically involves introducing regionally appropriate plants, also called native plants, and fostering habitats for local wildlife. People come to the practice for myriad reasons.
Some people want to support pollinators; some want to avoid water-guzzlers; others want to signal they are climate conscious. But the overarching purpose is universal: to encourage the flourishing of natural ecosystems and to mitigate the effects of habitat loss and climate change. In Negri’s yard, this means interweaving prairie grasses and southwestern shrubs commingle with pockets of bulbs, wildflowers and succulents, all chosen to thrive in Denver’s climate, which is warm and dry in the summer and harsh in the
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