Lawns to Legumes

Minnesota Residents: Apply for a $400 grant for native pollinator plants!

Lawns to Legumes was created to help Minnesota residents plant native pollinator gardens in their yards.

If you are a Minnesota resident, you can apply for up to $400 to buy native plants. Applications are accepted twice a year.

The application can be found at: bluethumb.org/lawns-to-legumes

Once you receive your grant, you can pre-order native plants from Blazing Star Gardens for pickup or shipping in May. We grow and sell the Midwest native plants that are approved for this grant! You can purchase any of the plants in our Lawns to Legumes plant category. At checkout, select from a list of pickup dates and locations in May, including Twin Cities Plant Sales in Edina, Burnsville, and Lake Elmo, as well as our Owatonna greenhouse.

Lawns to Legumes Pollinator Garden Kit - 72 plants Lawns to Legumes Pollinator Garden Kit - 72 plants
Lawns to Legumes Pollinator Garden Kit - 72 plants
$169.00

Can be shipped.

This Garden Kit includes 72 plants, a garden design, and instructions for planting and maintenance. The design and instructions are available here. We recommend reading the instructions page before purchasing.

The Lawns to Legumes Pollinator Garden Kit was specifically created for Minnesota residents who are participating in the Lawns to Legumes grant program! While all of our garden kits are good choices for the Lawns to Legumes program, this sun-loving garden was created with our favorite combination of short, sunny prairie plants (see list below). That’s why it’s perfect for front-yard areas which need a lower profile and for beginner gardeners who often get swamped by taller, spreading native plants. Instead, it has shorter plants that spread very slowly by seed, and when they do, you won’t mind them spreading.

It has a tailored variety of Minnesota native plants that will bloom from spring to fall, providing nectar and habitat for pollinators throughout the year. It has Butterfly Milkweed—a short orange-flowered milkweed that doesn’t spread aggressively like common milkweed. The showstopper, however, is the Meadow Blazing Star that blooms in August and attracts Monarchs by the dozens. You have to see it to believe it! It’s the only “tall” plant in the garden but it stands up straight like a stick and doesn’t bush out or create a dense jungle.

Many of the garden kits you’ll find at nurseries only have a handful of species and have long gaps without blooms, but this kit has 10 flower species which means there will be things blooming from April to October. It also has 3 species of fine-leaved clump-grasses—grasses that stay in clumps and don’t spread—which give a short, tranquil backdrop to the flowers.

Details

Perennials
Sun: Full Sun, Part Shade
Moisture: Medium, Dry
Height: 10 inches - 5 feet
Blooms: April - October
Spacing: Plant each plant about 12″ apart
Zones: 3-8
Benefits: Butterflies, Pollinators, Birds

Great native garden choice for the Minnesota Lawns to Legumes grant program!

Our garden kits are a great choice for a Lawns to Legumes grant project. They are perfect for beginner gardeners, because they include a design and instructions for planting. Many of our garden designs are created with shorter plants that don’t spread a lot. This makes them perfect for front yards and gardeners who don’t want a shorter, tidier garden.

Our Design a Pollinator Garden Tool is a great resource for designing a new garden. It has tons of resources for choosing the right plants such as bloom charts, spacing, and how plants spread.

What are native plants? Native plants are simply plants that existed in Minnesota prairies and forests before settlers arrived. They support pollinators, birds, and wildlife that call Minnesota home. Most nurseries and greenhouses don’t sell native plants, or sell cultivated varieties that aren’t accepted under this grant.

A backyard with a curved garden bed. The foreground shows bare dirt with black plastic edging around the edge. In the background, there are small plants, trees, a shed, and a red house with a backyard hedge.
A native plant garden with young plants bordered by a curved plastic edging on a green lawn, with trees and houses in the background.
A suburban yard with a small native garden bed covered in mulch and various small plants, surrounded by a well-manicured lawn and trees, with houses and a street in the background.
A landscaped front yard garden with native plants, with vibrant orange and yellow flowers, green grass, and large trees in a suburban neighborhood.
Purple flowers called Meadow Blazing Star with Monarch butterflies on their stems in a garden with other colorful flowers and trees in the background.
Colorful native pollinator garden with yellow and purple flowers, two trees, a grassy area, and a parking lot with cars in the background.