Difficulty

Mown lawn with a meadow edge

Keep the carpet near the house, let the back third or the side strip grow long with fine fescue and native flowers, and mow a clean path through it.

Cut height

3 inches near the house, unmown in the meadow strip in

Mows per week

1 on the lawn, 1 per year on the meadow

Hours per week

0.5

Extra cost per year

$40 to $150

How the course does it

Modern courses do exactly this with 'native areas' outside the rough: unmown fescue and wildflowers that cut water and mowing by a third.

Mower

Rotary mower, plus a string trimmer for one cut a year

How you do it

Pick the strip: along a back fence or the side yard nobody uses
Stop mowing it in April and seed with a fine fescue plus Illinois native mix in fall
Mow a crisp edge and a path through it every week so it reads as intentional, not neglected
Cut the whole strip once in late fall or early spring
Check your village code; most collar-county towns allow managed natural areas with a defined edge

Works with

Straight talk

The mown edge is everything. Without it, the neighbors call it weeds.