consider growing beneficial plants in yard rather than lawn grass, viz. food yielding plants, flowering shrubs, fruiting trees. 

lawn grass doesn't finish complete life cycle, from leaf blades to flowers to fruiting, hence depriving benefits to many life forms. additional resources are consumed to maintain the lawn grass, viz. time, fuel, fertilizer, water, in return not yielding as much benefit to any life form. 

for the resources spent on, one could enjoy produced foods. growing foods and flowers, support habitat for many life forms. of many resources we consume being humans, we can put some back into mother nature.