Diffusing Best Lawn Care Practices through Twin Cities Neighborhoods

Abstract

There is great interest from communities in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area in reducing outdoor water use, specifically on lawns. Educating millions of residents about lawn water conservation is a great challenge, especially at a time when public resources for Extension and outreach are limited. At the same time, we know that one’s neighbors are often an important influence on yard maintenance practices, serving as a trusted source of information. Could neighbors be a way to diffuse best practices for lawn care? To investigate this, we targeted Master Gardeners for the role of “Lawn Leader” due to their strong public engagement, as well as their existing interest and training in horticulture, plant science, and soil management. We developed a series of online modules specifically for Lawn Leaders, focusing on lawn water conservation and general lawn maintenance. These modules served as a foundation for an in-person training that followed, which centered on hands-on demonstration activities designed to prepare Lawn Leaders to educate their neighbors. The final step involved each Lawn Leader hosting their neighbors to teach them best practices and water-saving strategies. We hope that through these neighbor-to-neighbor interactions, residents will adopt more sustainable lawn care behaviors, particularly reducing unnecessary water use, based on what they learn from the Lawn Leader. To assess the effectiveness of this approach, we sent pre-event surveys to the neighborhoods in which Lawn Leaders hosted events; we will send a similar survey a year later to determine how lawn water conservation information diffused throughout these communities.