Create park/city land management standards/practices that maximize at least one of the following:

Turf management: 

• The Minnesota Recreation and Park Association supports a number of member networks.
• See environmental resources from the Minnesota Golf Course Superintendents’ Association.
• An extensive Turf Grass Maintenance Manual and Turf Grass Training Matrix Charts (Mississippi WMO, Fortin Consulting: 2010) highlight techniques for reduced environmental impacts, cost-savings, and plant health.
• The MPCA certifies individuals who take training on these turf grass best management practices, pass a test and commit to implementing the BMPs.
• See also MPCA tips and resources for low-impact residential lawn care.

Soil and compost: 

• Note that MPCA recommends the MnDOT compost specification 3890 as a soil amendment for landscape planting or turf establishment purposes. See updated spec 3890 on p. 715.
• For specifics on how to incorporate compost in turf establishment and maintenance see this guide by the Seal of Testing Assurance.
• Compost application to golf courses, parks, turf, and other land types is a cost effective way to improve grass quality.
• The 2007 guide by California EPA Compost Use for Landscape and Environmental Enhancement offers detailed information on the benefits of compost use in turf establishment and maintenance, soil stabilization, and plantings, among other uses and instructions on how best to incorporate compost into these projects.

Native landscaping and pollinator protection: 

• Addressing recent dramatic die-offs of honeybees, Shorewood became the first MN city to adopt in 2014 bee-safe policies and procedures for city land, relating to planting bee-friendly flowers and restricting pesticides thought to contribute to bee deaths, and including education to residents to keep properties in the city safe for pollinators.
• See adopted and model city resolution language for Pollinator Friendly Cities from Pollinate Minnesota.
• Learn about the state of pollinators, find resources, see annual reports at the Environmental Quality Board.
• Find additional best practice actions related to pollinator protection, native and pollinator-friendly vegetation, and bee-keeping. 
• Guidance for pollinator-friendly vegetated stormwater practices are included in the MPCA Stormwater Manual.
• The Mayors' Monarch Pledge is a challenge from the National Wildlife Federation for cities to restore habitat and encourage citizens to do the same in order to help save the monarch butterfly, an iconic species whose populations have declined by 90% in the last 20 years.
• Beyond Pesticides has model language for pesticide-free and integrated pest management city operations.
• The American Green Zone Alliance promotes zero-emission landscape maintenance strategies. Replacement of turf grass with a prairie, for example, pays for itself in about six years due to a reduction in moving costs (as estimated in 2019 by the Met Council).
• See action 2.6 for the Lawns to Legumes program focused on planting residential lawns with native vegetation and pollinator friendly forbs and legumes to protect a diversity of pollinators including the state Rusty Patched Bumblebee.
• In 2017 the Faribault city council approved an ordinance allowing prescribed grazing - the application of goats as a landscape management technique for noxious and invasive vegetation - on residential properties. The city itself is planning to use prescribed grazing in some of its parks and trails.
• See other guidance and funding for invasives' management from MN DNR and a number of other organizations.