Homeowner stuns with before-and-after photos of untraditional landscaping transformation: 'This is phenomenal'

One Redditor recently shared some before-and-after photos showing how they transformed a little patch of earth in front of their property, without relying on traditional, boring grass.

"Before: May 2022," wrote the original poster, sharing their work with the r/NativePlantGardening subreddit, followed by, "After: May 2023."

And what a difference one year makes. While the before photo shows a sad, depressing patch of mostly dead grass, the after photo shows a thriving tiny ecosystem complete with native flowers, grasses of various lengths, and a stone path leading through the middle.

🗣️ If you were to switch from a grass lawn to a more natural option, which of these factors would be your primary motivation?

🔘 Making it look better 🌱

🔘 Saving money on water and maintenance 💰

🔘 Helping pollinators 🐝

🔘 No way I ever get rid of my lawn 🚫

🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind

Native plant gardening is becoming increasingly popular, as people realize that simple, traditional grass lawns aren't the be-all and end-all of landscaping, as we have been led to believe for so long.

Not only do grass lawns require hugely wasteful amounts of water and tons of time and money to maintain, but that maintenance also often involves polluting gas-powered lawn equipment and toxic pesticides and chemicals.

The end result of that waste and pollution is lawns that are visually uniform and uninteresting, and that discourage biodiversity by robbing local animals and insects of the diverse native plants that they rely on.

Native plant gardening, on the other hand, encourages ecological diversity, while also being beautiful and interesting — and no two native plant gardens are exactly alike (unlike every grass lawn, which is exactly like every other grass lawn).

Many other native plant gardeners have shared their success stories with the internet, getting plaudits from various subreddits in the process, as well as from adorable wildlife such as a tiny box turtle that one native gardener recently discovered eating their wild blueberries.

The other Redditors of r/NativePlantGardening gave the project rave reviews.

"What a lovely improvement!! It looks fantastic," wrote one commenter.

"Love that! I know pulling that up was a lot of work!" wrote another.

"This is phenomenal!" wrote a third.