Wild flowers

[Tigger1895]

I live in an an estate. Everyone keeps their lawn and garden impeccably. Recently people have started wild flower gardens outside their property on the grass pathway. To me it looks unkept and unsightly.
I feel if you want bees to feed why not encourage them into your own garden instead of making the pathway look like you can’t be bothered mowing that piece of grass. AIBU

I ripped up my lawn, dug a pond, planted clover, daisies, buttercups, campion, cowslips, cornflowers.
I love it

You’re a fucking idiot, OP. Unsightly? Give me a break.

The roads here are now lined with with wild flowers and not manicured lawns. I love it, apart from the hay fever.

YABU. Weird societal standards about where it is acceptable and unacceptable to allow nature to be natural, are really not helping our planet at all. Ask yourself why you think the appearance of being traditionally "well kept" is more important than saving the planet, and if you truly think that is a good mentality to have.

We let our front garden go during No Mow May. A neighbour came round to mention it so we decided to leave it a bit longer and are now considering going over completely to wild flowers. We have in our back garden and it’s amazing what pops up. Bees matter more than tidiness.

Bees moved into our bee hotel the day we put it up, it’s amazing to see.

YABVU, OP.

A couple of years ago, the council scattered wild flower seeds on a lot of the verges and small green areas. The plants self seeded, so we're still seeing the benefit and a local group has done some tree planting and wildflower seeding.

The difference in the variety of butterflies and insects has been amazing. We have buff-tailed, white-tailed, honey bees, ivy bees and some that have furry feet, that I have yet to look up. I counted 4 different types of ladybird in a couple of afternoons recently, I've had a red damselfly and a couple of different dragonflies that I couldn't get a good enough look at to identify.

The butterflies have been amazing, and I was delighted to see a cinnabar moth in the garden for the first time yesterday. They are just beautiful!

So enjoy the wild flowers, and plant some of your own.

It all helps the bees, butterflies and other declining species! As long as their bee gardens don’t overhang the pavement I don’t see an issue. Also it can take years to get a bee garden to be mostly wild flowers and less long scrubby grass, you have to keep planting and weeding to get the pollinators to take over.

We have a sort of bee garden in the front garden in a corner. It’s an accidental one as I got fed up of weeding it. It does look unkempt and the lavender sort of spills out the edges, but the bees love it. I’ll tidy it up in autumn.

I have recently done away with my lawn and planted a mix of clover and wildflowers. I bet my neighbors hate me too. I have a large front lawn area so its pretty noticeable. Its sooo pretty but I guess compared to the beautifully manicured expanses of barren green the other houses have it does look unkempt. I dont care I like it
I just got bees too a hive of the fluffy buzzy things.

@Onairjunkie

You are being so, so unreasonable OP.

I have a farm and I’ve rewilded a six-acre paddock. With the tractor I have just cut a narrow strip/path through it so I can get through, but beyond that I’ve let it go. It is absolutely magical. It is full of deer, birds of every kind from tiny garden birds to birds of prey, rabbits and field mice. But they very best thing is the hum like a Lancaster bomber of the millions of bees flying from each of the beautiful wildflowers. How can that be a bad thing? I walk through it every day.

That sounds absolutely wonderful.

I do get where you’re coming from, I really do, but it’s better for bees and wildlife and nice that residents are taking an interest in growing wild flowers.

There’s a big trend towards this, which we frankly need as most U.K. wildflower meadows have long gone.

The council in my parents naice southern town now only mow their grass verges twice a year so the grass grows long and attracts wildlife (and saves the council money...)

As more people are becoming aware of how environmentally unfriendly lawns are I expect we’ll see more of this. I like it, but I accept it does look a bit untidy if you’re used to seeing mown grass.

@Onairjunkie what you have created sounds heavenly

My wild flowers are doing appallingly. They aren’t even 6 inches high yet, despite having being sown months ago. So I’ve decided not to cut the front grass And have let the clover take over. There is loads of it! So between the clover flowers, the lavender and the Buddleja there is still a lot of choice for the bees.

My little wild garden has: flag iris, cranesbill, nigella, st john's wort, speedwell, bluebell, forget-me-not, soapwort, daisy, fennel, rose (wild and cultivated) water-mint, barley, pimpernel, sorrel, wild garlic, soapwort, honeysuckle, tansy, yarrow, primrose, sweet violet, bracken, elder, teasel, nettle, woodruff, Welsh poppy, Queen Anne's lace, and various seeding grasses, in an area about four feet square.

My NDN likes her garden tidy and she keeps her lawn short. We like the wildlife that my riotous patch attracts, and so we had a chat and she asked if it was all right with us if she put up that weed-repellent membrane against the fence so that none of our wild flowers can get established with her.

So we're all happy!

@PiccalilliChilli

I live in a flat and all these lists have been inspiring...I will definitely ask our managing agent if we could re-wild some of our communal grounds! At the moment we have mowed lawns, manicured hedges and a few buses...I think we could do better. I intend to buy a house in the suburbs one day (or even leave the city altogether) and home I can grow a bee friendly space. Too often when I'm on Rightmove I despair at the gardens, all paved over or decked or covered in stones . Thanks all!

There was a program on recently, repeated from 2010 and it was sarah Raven basically doing that with different councils and residents associations. Might be useful to watch if it’s on catch up. It was bees, butterflies and blooms on bbc2.

I am going to start throwing wildflower seeds all over the place to piss off the lawnmower bee murderers.

I’ve left a strip of grass unmown this year and last year I started a border for pollinators.
I have so many different types of bees this year and hedgehogs are frequent visitors to my garden. I love my garden visitors.

Our garden s gravel, rather than a lawn (already done before we moved in) and you'd be surprised how much life is in it. Petals and leaves fall into it and decompose, so it's not completely barren and the birds love picking htrough it looking for someting juicy. We do regularly sift through it so it doesn't get too muddy but the compost that is sifted out goes onto our flowerbeds.

My herb patch is popular with bees. Even though the flowers are tiny, my thyme was crawling with them, the other day. Last year's parsley is about to bolt, so I shall allow that to flower before removing and replacing it.

@theoldtrout01876

I have recently done away with my lawn and planted a mix of clover and wildflowers. I bet my neighbors hate me too. I have a large front lawn area so its pretty noticeable. Its sooo pretty but I guess compared to the beautifully manicured expanses of barren green the other houses have it does look unkempt. I dont care I like it I just got bees too a hive of the fluffy buzzy things.

I'm letting clover and wild plants take over as well. My male lawn-obsessed neighbor stares balefully. Too bad.

I wanted to do this in my front garden, however I'm not allowed to. All our front gardens are open plan, no fences etc to separate them, so have to keep them "tidy" & mown. I hate it. Unfortunately I can't move either. I love wildflowers & long grasses. I took part in no mow May & the comments that were made were just ridiculous.

Done with no mow may and now far into let them bloom June whilst the weather has meant we are already at thigh high July. You'd hate my street. We've all left our shared empty space opposite the housrs totally wild apart from some trees we planted (Hawthorn and apple).

Nicer than concrete, or boring grass.

My lawn is neat but most of the edges are wildflowers - just had a load of gorgeous poppies flowering. A giant teasel, chamomile and ox eye daisies, buttercups and loads of cow parsley, angelica etc. Plus plenty I'm unsure of. I have a large nettle patch and native trees and native hedge. Its very satisfying seeing them all grow and I let them go to seed. I have a good size garden so can allow them space.

This is part of my garden currently, YABVVVU. The wildlife love it, there's so many bees around, and I think it looks lovely!