By Kim Glovas

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - With lawns starting to take off and gardens popping into bloom, one plant expert says you can reduce your mowing by transforming your lawn into something different.

Members of the Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve in Bucks County heard from an expert on low maintenance, nature friendly lawns last night.

Evelyn Hadden, author of “Beautiful No-Mow Yards” explained her philosophy. Hadden says if you want to convert your yard, “Start with places that you aren’t using the lawn anyway, and maybe you want to have a garden area in place of an unused lawn. One place where that might be steeper slope where you don’t enjoy mowing, it might even be unsafe to mow.”

And she says use plants that are native to your region. Hadden also says there are plants that can be substituted for grass.

“One really nice one is Pennsylvania sedge or oak sedge, that is a plant that looks just like grass, stays low without mowing.”

And it likes shade and dry places. No mow also means less gas pollution from mowers, less use of fertilizer and less water run off.