Anyone feel terrible about cutting their grass?

[IdentifyasTired]

It's that time of year again. Our grass grows so quickly and the dandelions and daisies are popping up all over it. The bees love it, the garden is full of them.

I keep mowing to a minimum but I still feel terribly guilty when I do get out there with the mower.

The front is just the same as the back. It's not even like I live in a cute chocolate box cottage that can get away with a slightly unkempt garden. We live in an uninspiring shabby looking semi. If the garden is untidy it's just adding insult to injury aesthetically.

And yet, the bees...the lovely bees. I hate mowing down their dandelions. What to do? How do people have a happy wildlife friendly garden and a tidy lawn?!

Anyone else share my annual dilemma?

I know what you mean. We keep all our flower beds pretty natural, with lots of different plants to attract bees etc, and don't weed the dandelions in there. The flowerbeds themselves are a little chaotic / messy, but we keep the grass and edges of the beds neat and short, which seems to make the garden look overall very tidy.

We have a section of lawn that we let grow wild. We have lots of wildflower pots dotted around as well.

Pots of dandelions maybe?! They'd look tidier at least!

We leave a few strips at the side.

If you want to encourage bees could you plant some bee friendly plants? Lavender for example.

Don’t feel guilty, get some bee bombs and feel happy! www.beebombs.com/

And chuck in a buddleia if you can stand the bloody thing self-seeding all over the place.

Tbh I’d just plant some wildflower seeds, let it grow long and have a proper wildflower bee-friendly garden.

If you want to make sure the neighbours know it’s a deliberate choice, put up some little signs of bees or bee houses.

We have 2 buddleia. Which the butterflies love.
Pots of dandelions might be a good compromise! Maybe I should do the same for nettles. The butterflies love them too.

Oh 8by8 if only I was so confident. But alas I'm a tragic conformist in so many ways.
I so admire people who do what you suggested.

We now around the edge and a path through. The rest is left to it's own devices.

Going to order some bee bombs, they look fab! Thanks for the tip. 🙂

Ooh RiftGibbon have you got a picture you'd be happy to share?

Not a recent one unfortunately, but I will look through and see if I can do you one

Thank you!

@IdentifyasTired - this is an old picture - we had just cut the front bit, not sure how clear it is.

If you don't like mowing the dandelions then don't

People are way too over invested with a pristine lawn. It won't hurt to leave it linger between mowings

I read that lawns used to be a mix of grass and clover, so much better for bees, but weed killer kills everything except grass so the weedkiller companies ran a campaign saying that clover was a weed, and now everyone is just left with plain grass.

Bring back clover! It adds nitrogen to the soil too.

I'd love to get clover into my lawn!