View the Native Grass Transition plan for Greenwood Cemetery here.
The City of Lexington is undertaking a plan to transition portions of Greenwood Cemetery to native grasses. The City released it’s 7-page plan on social media Tuesday afternoon. The posting describes it as a multi-year process “that will require patience as the improvements become established over time.” The condition of the grass at Greenwood Cemetery has been the topic of discussion on social media and at one of last month’s Lexington City Council meeting. The topic is expected to be raised again at tonight’s Lexington City Council meeting(5:30pm) under public comments. It was not listed as an agenda item.
The plan was actually started in June 2024 and could take up to 8 years to fully implement it according to the “Native Grass Transition” plan released by the City of Lexington this(Tuesday) afternoon.
The plan says the project will gradually replace the struggling cool-season turf with a hybrid prairie/lawn mix of native and low/water grasses, including buffalograss, blue grama, Blue Mesa sheep fescue, and little bluestem. When fully implemented, the plan says it will using about half the irrigation of a conventional lawn and relying on deep, infrequent watering, an approach deemed “to perform better during central Nebraska’s hot, dry summers while lowering fertilizer and maintenance needs.”
The plan could take 8 years to fully implement, with uneven and sometimes brown patches considered a normal part of the process as native grasses focus on developing deep root systems. It continues that the early years emphasize weakening existing turf and slowly establishing natives, while later stages allow drought-tolerant species to dominate, reducing irrigation to emergency use only. Once mature, the cemetery lawn is expected to resemble a prairie-style landscape with seasonal color changes, far greater heat tolerance, and long-term sustainability under Nebraska water and climate conditions.
