Evenings with Experts

An Experiment in Lawn to Meadow Conversion: Exceeding Expectations

Sara Weaner Cooper, Executive Director, New Directions in the American Landscape

March 12 | 7:00 - 8:30pm

Where: Online via Zoom

Fee: Free and open to all.

In April of 2022, Sara and Evan Cooper moved into a new home in suburban Philadelphia with a 5,000 sq. ft. front lawn. Eager to transition it into a native wildflower meadow, Sara also wanted to avoid herbicide, heavy physical labor, and unhappy feedback from neighbors. Leaving the turf in place, she began a conversion process that relied on actions that weakened the lawn grass while strengthening her newly planted meadow. After two growing seasons, the results have exceeded expectations enough to be featured in The New York Times in 2024. Learn the practical steps they took, their successes and challenges thus far, methods of maintaining neighborhood harmony, and their plans for guiding the meadow to maturity.

Sara Weaner Cooper is the executive director of New Directions in the American Landscape, an educational organization dedicated to the art, culture, and science of ecology-based landscape design and practice. Starting in 2018, she expanded the range of their programming to reach home gardeners and students as well as professional practitioners. In 2024 NDAL received the American Horticultural Society Award for Horticultural Innovation, recognizing their work to make “the field of horticulture more sustainable and accessible to all.”