AROUND BABYLON · TOWN OF BABYLON

The Town of Babylon would like a word about your lawn.

Its Green Homes program has been running native-plant workshops with Spadefoot Ecosystem Solutions, an ecological restoration landscaping company based in Woodbury, including sessions at Phelps Lane Park.

The pitch started with compost. Jassi Anand, the Town’s sustainability director, said residents who took part in a discounted composting program turned out to be interested in gardening too.

“We’re trying to have residents look at their homes as a whole to encourage them to be more self-sustainable,” she said.

The environmental argument is blunter than it sounds. Brittany Champey, Spadefoot’s vice president, said the suburbs traded away functions nature used to perform — chief among them, handling water.

“Living in the suburbs of Long Island, our environments are so overly developed, and because of that you lose some of the functions that nature provides,” she said.

A manicured lawn, in her words, is “functionally the same as pavement.” It does not absorb stormwater well, which matters in a town where so much former forest is now paved.

“I think people use those practices because it’s what’s been done traditionally,” Champey said. “One of the main reasons we do workshops like this is to teach people there is another way.”

The workshops cover native vegetation and invasive species, and how to start a native garden. The Long Island Native Plant Initiative — a nonprofit that collects seeds from heritage sites where plants have grown for centuries — runs plant sales alongside them.

Co-president Colleen Doyle is not selling sacrifice. She is selling status.

“I want them to be the talk of the town so that there’s a wave of people feeling like, ‘Oh, having this postage-stamp, bright green lawn is no longer the coolest way to be,’” Doyle said.

For Frank Greco, 70, of Lindenhurst, who grows much of his native garden from seed in a backyard greenhouse and attended the first two workshops, the draw was simpler.

“Events like that are a good way to network and connect,” he said.

Green Homes also runs free home energy audits, with work up to $19,000 assessed onto the property at 3% over ten years. The program has served thousands of Babylon households.

Stock photo: Bee balm (Monarda fistulosa), a native plant. Photo by Sara Causey / Unsplash; not taken at the location in this story.

Sources: Newsday · Long Island Native Plant Initiative · Town of Babylon