No Mow May

[TabithaTimeTurner]

Just a little friendly reminder that if you could not mow your lawn for May the insects and flowers would be very grateful. Even leaving a small wild patch can really help. Plus it gives the lazy fuckers amongst us an excuse not to mow the lawn for a while 😁

This is from Plant Life:
We’ve lost approximately 97% of flower-rich meadows since the 1930’s and with them gone are vital food needed by pollinators, like bees and butterflies.But your lawn can help! A healthy lawn with some long grass and wildflowers benefits wildlife, tackles pollution and can even lock away carbon below ground. With over 20 million gardens in the UK, even the smallest grassy patches add up to a significant proportion of our land which, if managed properly, can deliver enormous gains for nature, communities and the climate.This is why Plantlife calls for people to get involved with #NoMowMay every year, and let wild plants get a head start on the summer.Best of all, to reap these benefits all you have to do is not mow your lawn in May and beyond!Join the movement here https://www.plantlife.org.uk/campaigns/no-mow-may-registration-2024/

So many householders in my locality obviously do No Mow May every year - it's lovely to see!

I'm busily neglecting my allotment.. if questioned that's what I'm going to say!!

Yes, it is prevalent around here and one of my family members paid quite a bit for it to be landscaped like that the whole year, the view from their kitchen is beautiful like a Monet painting.

If I don't mow mine my neighbour will do it as they passive aggressively "thought you must be ill". Then I feel guilty... despite saying I'm doing no mow may for 3 years. So last year and this year the front gets mown. Back garden doesn't.

Yes I am doing it,did it last year as well.

@TabithaTimeTurner Absolutely not. Trying to mow a lawn that's been left for a month at this time of year, is hard work and I have a disability.

Also, it means that when I do go to mow it again, I'm brutally murdering loads of creatures that have taken up residence in the long grass/newly formed meadow, whom weren't there before!

Do what most people do and sow a tonne of Wildflower seeds in your borders and/or several planters or pots. I've thousands of wildflower seedlings who will keep the bees, butterflies & insects very happy in a few weeks. Meanwhile my clematis, tulips, daffodils & cherry blossom are keeping them going.

The main reason weve lost so much wildlife is clearing land for livestock / the meat industry. It's got nothing to do with whether my lawn is neat or not!

Fake grass and concreted gardens are also not great

they are not mutually exclusive, why not try and help as it is obviously beneficial.

The blackbirds who use my lawn won't if the grass is too long, not the starlings picking out ants. Lawns replicate rabbit-grazed turf. Most lawns won't suddenly explode into a riot of orchids. Just looking at our unmown verges, it's rank grasses, dock and ragwort, plus a,few dandelions and buttercups.

My problem is I haven't mowed at all this year, meaning I now have thick clumps that are above knee height that are going to be a nightmare to cut.

Sorry I will be tackling the grass shortly.

P.S. not mowed yet because of all the rain.

We have loads more variety of birds with a wilder garden, tiny birds that are the size of mice that I have never seen before, we live in a City but near a woods so I don’t know if the surrounding nature and context is the reason for this.

Not loads more just more variety that should read!

I'm glad that there is a thread on this becuase I fundamentally do not understand it.

If I mow my lawn for the rest of the year, but not in May, then I do not suddenly generate a wild flower lawn. All I do is create millions of dandelion seeds, which I then spend the rest of the year digging out of the flower/veg beds. My lawn is grass, not wildflowers.

I do not have a neat lawn, and it is currently covered in daisies. But I am not going to leave it unmown for the whole of May.

My garden is full of flowers for pollinators right now, as are all the gardens up and down the street. There are many flowers around in May.

If I want to grow wild flowers then letting them grow for May and then cutting them down is useless. They need to grow until end of August in order for them to set seeds, in order to reappear next year.
How do I know this? Because we have wildflower meadows near us, and the council has on occasion cut them early, in July or early August and there has been a furious riotous response because it is too early.

So, genuinely, can someone who gets it, explain why not mowing in May is helpful?

Anyone who willingly has fake grass should be shot out of a cannon

I think No Mow May is a great idea! I just wish more of my neighbours would unclench on their manicured lawns and everyone did it.

If I don't mow my small lawn next door's cat poos on it.

I deliberately grow lots of flowers for pollinators but I mow my lawn every couple of weeks until it dies in summer from lack of rain.

My local council tried to stop mowing verges 3 years ago to save money and it has caused lots of issues. Some weeds which are environmental hazards or simply pernicious were allowed to run riot due to not mowing plus not using weed killer. Then the grass seeds got caught in dogs paws. They got so many reports and complaints that last year they went back to mowing them regularly.

Like @jollygreenpea our lawn hasn’t been mowed due to rain (and the ground being too soft). The grass is already too long (and the ground is still a bit boggy!), I don’t think leaving it until the end of May would create more wild flowers, though, it is knee high grass at the moment.

Dh had no mow 2023.
I think he's planning on no mow 2024.

Agreed.

Do it!

I've had to use a strimmer first when that's happened to me. Not easy to do if you have any form of back problems/movement disabilities.

So I've learnt the hard way to cut the grass as late as possible in Autumn/Winter so I don't end up with long grass in Spring if it rains.

The last thing I want to do is to look out at an overgrown lawn that would be almost knee high and full of weeds if it was left for a month at this time of year!

All those plants benefit wildlife.

OP are you going to come and tackle the knee high grass that the lawnmower can't get through on 1 June? Thought not.

Our grass is about 0.1% of the grass nearby so it makes not a blind bit of difference to the local wildlife whether or not I cut my grass in May, so I plan to keep up with it as normal, much as I'd love to be able not to bother, I can't be doing with the amount of work it creates long term.

What happens to all the wildlife that have gorged themselves silly in May and reproduced and are happy and frolicking in the long grass and June comes along and it's all taken away from them?

Isn't it a bit like holding a fund raiser for a starvation epidemic abroad and giving them a load of dosh and they become well enough to reproduce and then it all comes crashing down when there is another drought or crop failure and there's too many of them and not enough food to go round so they all start starving again.

It musta seems like a los of virtual signalling nonsense to make people feel smug.