Get Paid for BEEing Friendly: Minnesota “Lawns to Legumes” Program

Are you tired of mowing the lawn AND do you want to help the bees? A Minnesota program introduced in 2019, called “Lawns to Legumes”, allocated $900,000 for residents to adopt bee-friendly lawns to protect the rusty patched bumblebee, which has been endangered since 2017.

What is Lawns to Legumes?

With Lawns to Legumes, residents can plant their lawns with wildflowers (make sure they are native wildflowers!), dutch white clover, creeping thyme, self-heal, and other grasses that attract pollinators. Specifically, they can plant “flowering shrubs or trees, pockets of habitat (which are more or less gardens), or they can choose to remove their lawn of turfgrass and replace it with a pollinator lawn or pollinator meadow.”

For homeowners interested in transforming their lawn, Minnesota will cover 75-90% of the cost, depending on where you live. For homeowners living in the bumblebees’ primary habitat, categorized as “priority areas,” they’ll be reimbursed up to $500. Those living in secondary pollinator corridors will receive $350, while those outside the two zones will receive $150. Any residential property, including apartment complexes and rural houses, are eligible. 

The Benefits of a Bee-Friendly Lawn

Bee-friendly lawns don’t mean long, overgrown grass and an unkempt appearance! The lawns will indeed include a longer cut of the grass with wildflowers and other plants interspersed, but the basic appearance is still similar. You’ll still be able to do activities like playing catch or having a picnic.

With typical, manicured lawns that require constant mowing and pesticides, they also require frequent water usage in regular times and periods of drought and water shortages.

Minnesota hopes that lawns filled with diverse flowers and plants will provide ample habitat and food sources for rusty patched bumblebees and other bees that are threatened by habitat loss, climate change, and other factors. Dutch white clover is inexpensive and doesn’t grow too high, leaving it easy to maintain. 55% of Minnesota’s bee species have been seen feeding on the white clover, so planting it is a tangible way to help the bees.

How to Help

The first round of applications for Lawns to Legumes closed in February 2020, garnering over 5,000 applications from people who want to help save the bees. The second round of applications closed in June 2020. Although the program is currently not accepting applications, fall is the perfect season to plant shrubs and trees that will persist throughout the winter.

You can still employ bee-friendly habits, such as planting native flowers and reducing pesticide use, without being a member of Lawns to Legumes!