Are you doing 'no mow may' ?

[finallygotospeaktoSky]

We have large front and back lawns and doing the no mow may the grass is lush and imo flowers, bees, insects and birds visiting are fantastic. We've had goldfinches visit for the first time pecking on grass seeds and various visitors coming in for a peck about.
Our neighbour, on the other hand has started mowing his two lawns twice a week, normally does once a fortnight. PA or what? 😀
Personally couldn't care less what other people do with their gardens but it is amusing all the same.
Anyone else doing the no mow thing and if so, how's it going?

I have the lawn mainly mowed with an unmown wild border to parts. I'm continually working on expanding the bee friendly borders and making the lawn smaller.
My garden is very sloped and I'm afraid that if I let it get too wild I wouldn't be able to mow at all.
The parts that are unmown are going to stay that way until September. I read that you have to remove the grass when you strim in the autumn and then mow again in December in order to get native wildflowers growing. I'd love a beautiful wildflower meadow eventually but there seems to be more work to it than just not mowing.

We were doing it over the whole back lawn but the dog hated it so we mowed a big section for him and left another section wild with flowers for the bees.

Is that the study that lead to "No Nettles Required"? A great book that anyone interested in wildlife gardening should read. It not all about bees.

Leaving lawns longer reduces moisture loss and the space between stems are vital habitats for a wide range of bug, creepy crawlies, and larvae, which in turn provide food for birds etc.

We have 7 acres, so no.

The only times I've seen it have been when gardens are tiny and the occupants really couldn't maintain the grass, perhaps through disability or just sheer life load. I don't think many people who choose to live somewhere with a sizeable garden go for it.

No I’m not this year, have done in the past. My garden is right next to a piece of public land that is absolutely covered in dandelions so no shortage of pollen there. I also have a huge raspberry bush patch that has gone ballistic this year, at any one time there’s about 10 bumblebees on it, plus a variety of flowers and bushes along the side and the whole thing is brimming with wildlife including hedgehogs and families of robins and bluetits. I’ve only got a little patch of grass about 15ft square anyway.

Our garden is quite overgrown all year round, except the hedges (they are cut back into shape once a year).
We don’t have time to garden with a preschooler and a baby, plus overgrown gardens are magic for young children.

No, I’m not. I was away for two weeks on a cruise this May, and after what must have been a v wet fortnight back home in Scotland, the lawn is already so long that my Flymo will struggle to cut it without burning out the motor.
I have plenty of wildlife in my garden, with birds nesting in the shrubberies, bumble bees pollinating the many flowers, and judging by the fearsome number of cracked shells left on the flagstones by thrushes, too many snails! The garden backs onto a stream and fields, with a line of trees and hedgerow, so I have no need to provide extra habitat.

You're making me feel much better, we rarely get round to mowing. I have strimmed a bit to take down some of the cow parsley, the buttercups are two feet high and forget me nots almost as tall. I'm glad we are finally on trend, ours is like this every year.

It is fun round here. Hilly and full of people who knock decent houses down and build ugly boxes instead. It's like a mix of hideous faceless hotels/spas which are actually characterless homes, with lights on all night and some real houses that haven't been trashed yet.

These pillocks move in after the work is done and proceed to destroy every tree and shrub, put a cowshed thing at the end of the garden so they can sit out at night, make as much noise as possible and set fire to stinking wood chips further wrecking the environment. We need a return to smokeless zones.

Then the weather changes and all the whining about 'My garden is flooded' start. What they are too stupid to realise is that they caused it by destroying the trees. Shame it doesn't drown them or suck them under the mud. Wishful thinking...

No, because we have ticks in our garden, so keep the grass short.

Yes agree on the needing trees for managing rain. Also trees and lawn make it very cool when there are high temperatures like last year. If you pave over your garden or use artificial turf you will roast. Artificial grass gets so hot it can burn you or alternatively, melt.

Grass just dies a bit and comes back when the rain does.

I seeded a few years back with a mix of micro clover and grass, so also have clover in the lawn.

Dandelions have all been left to seed this year. Lawn is full of creeping buttercups too. Wild violets and purple deadnettle, plus celandine and lots of Herb Robert and wood sorrel. I keep as much as possible without losing the entire garden to them. And the never ending bindweed which I do try to keep under control.

No our back garden gets ridiculous so it's been cut, I've got a wildflower flower bed at the front for bees and butterflies though and I'm planning on finding other things to put in there for them to help at some point (basically when I can find the time to do anything.

Not this year, we did it last year.

This year I'm digging the thistles and dandelions out of the lawn because we're hosting a big birthday party for my dad in the summer. Lots of bare children's feet and thistles don't mix!

The garden is surrounded by trees, so the insects are doing ok, and there's lots of birds to eat them up!

No because it’s a huge lawn and would need brush cutting back! We leave it on the highest setting this time of year so it doesn’t get frost damage and same again in drought months so it can retain the water. Plenty of woodland, pond life and wildlife in our garden so no need to turn it completely wild we’re already doing our bit.

Yes we are, and will be doing Can't be Arsed June. We cut round the periphery so it looks intentional.

On a side point...I didn't seem to get any goldfinches this year and usually they love the dandelion seeds. I used to plant dandelions in planters near the house so they'd get right up close. Did anyone else get this?

Loving this thread, an so glad I opened it. But on initially seeing the title I (wrongly) assumed that "No Mow May" was similar to Movember, and it was in celebration of women who didn't shave their legs or anything else! Next year I will do both versions of No Mow May :)

We never mow our top lawn and try not to do the main one too much, but we have to a bit because our mower just can't cope if the grass is too long and I also worry about hiding snakes etc as we are fairly rural and next to a forest.

We have a wildflower border around my pond that has now taken over the rest of the lawn.

I cut my grass in February and then leave it until September, I cut a path through the garden leading to the shed, hammock and pondside and leave the rest, removing dead flowers once they are dried and spent.

It looks scruffy and chaotic until now when the poppies start opening, the daisies should be soon and the yarrow is starting to grow too.

@Daftasabroom

I read about it years ago in the RHS magazine, before they went mad and decided that all you need is weeds.

All I really meant was that there is no need to think that because you can access your borders ( actually the ‘borders’ here take up about 5/6 of the total area) by cut grass paths, you are somehow a slash and burn merchant. Whereas the nettles and ground elder advocates are destined for an environmental paradise.

Years ago I experimented with an improved ( added campanula and helenium) wild patch . I found it took far more work keeping the thugs down than the more varied plantings in the traditional borders, and as the whole thing was swarming with wildlife , it was pointless.

Actually I’ve just realised that we are not cutting the grass where the 500 daffodils are planted until they die down. So we are okay , after all! 😇

No. Because if it's uncut it makes it difficult to pick up the dog poo and the fox shit deposited by nocturnal vulpine visitors. Garden is full of insect-friendly plants and we live in the countryside surrounded by fields. If the insects don't like my lawn they can feck off over the hedge and live the life of Riley in the meadow.

I semi have , it was getting too unruly and I have a very big garden so I've mowed paths through it and left the rest long .

I love no mo may and always try to talk my husband into continuing it (he's the gardener) but sometimes he gives into following the neighbourhood trend.