Blue planet, green ideas | Drummondville is testing alternatives to grass

Trading grass for a more diverse lawn is a good idea on paper, but in practice, what will be the result? The City of Drummondville uses its public spaces to show different options.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

(Drummondville) Here, a large clover clover covers the shaded parterre at the foot of a tree; there, small blue periwinkle emerges from a compact soil; further on, St. John’s wort and wild thyme grow in full sun.

These different plants were sown in the four corners of the city of Drummondville this summer, to allow citizens to see the different options that exist to replace the traditional lawn.

Many citizens want to diversify their lawn, but are wondering which plants to choose and what their flowerbed will look like, the municipal administration noted.

“People want to see the result first,” says the director of the city’s environment department, Roger Leblanc. “What could be better than doing showcases and showing people the possible solutions? »

Nine “integration zones”

The City has thus developed nine “integration zones”, where it has sown different native species according to the specific characteristics of each place.

In four other places, the City is simply testing stopping mowing, to “let nature take its place,” adds Mr. Leblanc.

“It’s quite surprising, the species that arise,” he notes, saying he has identified up to 20 new ones in places.

And with them comes a whole fauna that had disappeared.

“There are species of birds that we hadn’t seen, they come to feed, they come to nest,” enthuses Mr. Leblanc.

The objective of the experiment is that it be repeated on private properties, without however “changing all the lawns on all the properties”, specifies Roger Leblanc.

“There are people who have more complex, shaded spaces, where it’s difficult to have vegetation, so we’re going to bring ideas like that to citizens,” he explains.

Sometimes you have to overcome some reluctance, too, recognizes the City, particularly about stopping mowing, which is often perceived as a lack of maintenance. ” [Mais] the minute there is a flowery addition to the layout, the perception is completely different, it removes the notion of lack of maintenance,” observes Roger Leblanc.

Benefits for the City

The City itself intends to adopt on a larger scale the techniques it is experimenting with this summer on its land.

“There are huge benefits to doing that,” says Roger Leblanc, referring to the reduction in the maintenance of green spaces, and therefore the City’s expenses and greenhouse gas emissions.

“The goal is to reduce the surface area of ​​maintenance contracts by 20%,” he says.

To achieve this, Drummondville will not only add biodiversity to its lawns, it will also “transition” its landscaping by using native plants, which are more resistant and require less maintenance.

This approach will also save water and is consistent with the City’s recent ban on pesticides, underlines Roger Leblanc, who affirms that the results exceed expectations.

And the citizens also seem to appreciate.

“People see that and we have a lot of questions, they want to have the same seeds,” says Mr. Leblanc.

The City also plans to collect the seeds on its land in order to offer them to the population next spring.