Wild can be good

From June 2024 to February 2025, commercial beekeepers lost an estimated 62 percent of their bees. According to Project Apis m., a nonprofit beekeeping organization, 1.1 million colonies were lost in the last year.

Pollinators like honeybees are responsible for every third bite of food and 90 percent of flowering plants require pollination. 

Superintendents can help reverse the impacts of pollinator decline and habitat loss. Being a steward for the environment and the caretaker of land and wildlife provides a space to attract pollinators while gaining aesthetics and saving money.

Dr. Gregg Munshaw has dedicated his life to the turfgrass industry. He earned his Ph.D. in turfgrass science at Virginia Tech and has taught at Mississippi State University and the University of Kentucky. He now works as director of agronomy for Pinnacle Ag Research Center, where he does private research for various companies. He is currently researching wildflowers, studying species, timing of bloom, their impact on wildflowers and more. His research can help you decide: Should you mow the roughs? Or not mow?

When you step on hole No. 3 at Blackhawk Country Club in Madison, Wisconsin, you might see a deer lounging in the tall grass, or a monarch butterfly resting on a flower. (For more on monarch’s read Henry DeLozier’s column, A crowning achievement, on page 15.) A prairie full of wildflowers ranging from 3 to 10 feet high fills the out-of-play area. 

“It’s loaded with everything you can imagine,” superintendent Chad Grimm says.

Built in 1921, Blackhawk Country Club is home to an 18-hole parkland style course. The land is home to effigy mounds, which are found in the National Historic Registry for historic places. 

A few years ago, Blackhawk’s maintenance team decided to allow an out-of-play area to grow in. They later decided to bring in Dr. Chris Williamson of the University of Wisconsin, where a pollinator promotion program was implemented.

“What he wanted to do was put these on a few golf courses, and to dispel some of the myths of golf courses being a terrible place for bees, so we decided we put our bees with this program in our prairie and had great success with him while he was here,” Grimm says.

Grimm saw success with the pollinator program, and the prairie has been thriving since.

There’s some severe terrain throughout the course. “We have some very steep banks that we cannot mow with machine mowers,” Grimm says. “We have to push-mow them with lawn mowers.”

Due to time consumption and potential dangers for the staff, the club decided to fill the area with wildflowers. They went with the Verge mix, which features grasses and flowers that grow from 4 to 6 inches in height and include pollinators. Mowing is only required once or twice a year. 

“You're getting right by the environment, helping the bees, and saving money and safety all at the same time,” Grimm says. The club has seen success and is planning to put seeds down in two other large areas on the course next year.

Because of the wildflower areas on the course, bees and pollinators thrive and have a home. Providing a habitat for pollinators is one substantial benefit to seeing out-of-play areas on courses. The habitats for the bees also provide habitats for small mammals and birds, encouraging a wide variety of wildlife. “I think it does good things for the soul to be out there and in nature, and being on the golf course I think is great for that,” Munshaw says. “But then having a huge diversity of species I think can help even more.”

Colorful, blooming flower areas also provide an aesthetic beauty.

“Instead of having wall-to-wall green and having different mowing heights, you’ve got this area that is maybe 6 feet tall or whatever, that is just full of different colors,” Munshaw says. “Most people live in the city where there’s a lot of concrete and steel, and here we’ve got this golf course that has just a huge diversity piece.”

To provide color as frequently as possible, Munshaw recommends a mix of annuals and perennials. “Your goal is to have constant color from spring till fall,” he says. This ensures blooming throughout the primary golf season in cool-weather environments.

By allowing these areas to grow in, a course reduces the labor hours required to regularly manage them. For most wildflower areas, mowing down is only required once or twice a year — whereas before, mowing was required frequently, using gas and equipment.

Reducing labor hours and mowing time can also help save money for the course. According to the USGA, golf courses that maintain 50 or more acres of rough spend around $75,000 a year caring for those areas. Bringing the acreage down can decrease spending.

“I think that’s one of the things that golf course superintendents are excited about the most,” Munshaw says. “All these other things are great and a benefit, but budgets are tight and if I can reduce my budget or use money in my budget for other things rather than just mowing rough, then it’s a win at the end of the day.” 

Wildflower areas don’t come without their difficulties, though. Munshaw says a common issue is grow-in speed. If not planted properly, weeds will grow faster than the flower seed and overtake the area. To help, some seed mixes recommend applying a grass herbicide before planting to kill off existing weeds. 

“There are definitely some growing pains,” Grimm says, adding that superintendents should expect some upfront costs, and that learning how to best keep weeds out takes some time. 

Patience is a wildflower virtue — even when your course is near some antsy and popular critters.

As part of the Columbus Zoo parks’ commitment to wildlife, Safari Golf Club has planted pollinator gardens in numerous locations on their 140-acre, 18-hole course. Located across the street from the Ohio zoo’s wildflower-filled entrance, the course added a pollinator garden to its entrance in 2023. The area fills half an acre with wildflowers and prairie grasses.

Environmental protection is a major part of the Columbus Zoo’s values, and Safari Golf Club earned Audubon International Cooperative Sanctuary certification in 2018, 2022 and 2025.

“It’s part of what somebody who takes care of a property should be interested in,” superintendent Kurt Boggs says. “You never want to go out there and negatively affect the environment.”

In 2024, the club earned a grant to add a pollinator garden around an irrigation pond. The club worked with MAD Scientist Associates, LLC to plant various shrubs and plugs, and reseed the area with a native seed mix. 

“In the next two to three years, it should mature and add some aesthetics and some food sources for the birds,” Boggs says. 

Boggs says the biggest challenge was getting the area established. Due to less rainfall and drought-like conditions, watering the area was time-consuming and one zone began to grow noxious weeds.

“We’ve had to mow down one in early summer because it started getting a bunch of ragweed in it,” Boggs says. “We got that before it went to seed. We mowed it down, and then after that, we didn’t have to apply anything. It just didn’t come back the following year, which was good.”

Thanks to the wildflowers, birds, bees and butterflies have found a safe habitat on the Dr. Michael Hurdzan-designed course.

When considering letting an area grow in, superintendents should be sure the area isn’t close to play. “You want these areas to be pretty well out,” Munshaw says. “You may have a rough area, that if somebody misses a fairway, they can still play out of. A wildflower area would be outside of that.”

Consult with your golf pro and general manager to ensure the area chosen will not interfere with play.

When deciding on a mix, Munshaw recommends using resources such as the Xerces Society, a nonprofit organization that provides resources on native plant species. Superintendents need to decide on the proper height of the plant material. If the goal is to attract pollinators, success is still seen in shorter species.

Munshaw also suggests including milkweed in mixes. Milkweed can provide habitats for monarch caterpillars and butterflies, which are on the decline. Milkweed is traditionally found on farm fields, where input usage has nearly made the species non-existent. “It’s not necessarily super pretty but it’s critical for monarchs — both the adults and the caterpillars,” Munshaw says.

Planting wildflowers and native species in designated areas on the course can help build an entire ecosystem. It can help lower the club’s budget, decrease labor hours and add a new aesthetic for players.

“It’s a great thing,” Munshaw says, “and increases the diversity on golf courses from, again, just this monostand of short grass to something that is a whole ecosystem that we wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Kelsie Horner is Golf Course Industry’s assistant editor.