AIBU to ask you to cut your grass?

[BadEyedManiac]

I know there's a movement around not cutting grass and not trimming hedges and so on which I have to say our local council has enthusiastically embraced to the point that road signs are partly obscured by various shrubbery.

However although this might be lovely for bees (although the absolute benefits are probably limited in the context of the age of industrial farming which no one is doing anything about) it is hell on earth for people with pollen allergies. And is particular hell on earth for people like me who have pollen allergies and a corneal condition.

I've just woken up due to corneal pain and have spent ten minutes pouring eye drops into my eyes and I know it's only going to get worse as summer goes on. The environmental benefits from people failing to tend their greenery in urban areas are negligible while the effects on the people around you can be absolutely brutal. Please, please cut your bloody grass. This is awful.

I have sympathy for your hayfever but absolutely welcome any efforts to support our wildlife. Humans are havong a catastrophic impact on our planet and we need to support nature in as many ways as possible. Of course you are right that farming practices need to change.

I admit I've let mine grow, as I haven't had the time/weather. I noticed last night that the lawn is covered in that long grassy stuff* (not blades of grass but long stems with almost wheat looking tops) - first time ever. Sure this is contributing to your agony. I'm going to deal with it as soon as it's acceptable. Incidentally what time do we agree is acceptable? 10am?

*apologies to the green fingered for the dreadful description.

A more effective solution for you would probably be to go to your GP, to be honest.

Just as people are making no difference to the bees by not cutting their grass... you will make no difference to this issue by shouting about it on mumsnet.

Get some medical help for your allergy, you can get injections and other meds for it.

Helping the bees? My arse! The council have only one goal in mind- cutting costs!

Where I live the previously green grassed areas where daisies and dandelions bloomed are now scrubby, ugly, weedy wastelands and the smart victorian flagged streets now look like scrubland with tall weeds in all the cracks. So much for it being a conservation area! Pah!

Absolutely this. You're being ridiculous, OP. Your initial plea about your allergies was unreasonable. The subsequent wittering about ticks, driving the wrong way on roundabouts , posters being "mentally ill to enjoy grass"...you sound two drops short of a piss, frankly.

You've got health problems that are made worse by the environment you live in. Welcome to a very large, diverse club. Try to tone down the self-pity and reframe your problems as...well, your problems.

coming In and cutting all your grass 1st june isn’t great for wildlife either. Especially if you have frogs or slow worms as the babies are on the move. No mow may is a movement to encourage more biodiversity and love of a wild side. It’s not about just being lazy for a month

On the verges etc If it’s managed well the grass will be over taken by wildflowers so that may help you?? It does need to be mown for view points though

it’s great. it Saves the council money (so us). Better for the insects and so the wildlife that feeds on them.

i do feel for you. I really do. But the environment is utterly fucked, plastic grass and tarmac is causing flooding, micro plastics. Mown short Lawns ecologically are not great, but a wilder lawn or verge with a mix. Brilliant. As the brilliant woman on gardeners world said, We cannot do anything about the rainforest, but we can our own patch

I'm with you on this @BadEyedManiac, I have been thinking that hay fever sufferers would be getting it in the neck with the councils' neglect of roadside verges. There are a lot of people who will burble on like "But the BEES" (which is what people mean when they refer to pollinators, they don't mean insects like wasps and flies and moths which are also major pollinators but they're not nice so meh) and completely ignore the fact that grasses (and many trees) are WIND POLLINATED and are no use to pollinators whatsoever.

The "turf weeds" like clover, daisies, dandelions, self-heal, black medick, buttercups (especially creeping buttercup rather than meadow buttercup) are all well used to growing in turf that is trimmed regularly, either by grazing animals or lawnmowers, and they flower on short stems just as easily as they do on long. Some plants like mouse-ear or cuckoo flower don't respond like that and do need to be left to grow long. But, you still have a great number of pollinator-friendly flowers available even if you still mow.

Just not mowing grass doesn't magically make new flowering plants appear if they weren't there before. Councils would have to arrange for the purchase of seeds and/plug plants and actually physically put them in verges to get a good diverse range. They would also have to weaken the dominant species of grass with a semi-parasitic plant like yellow rattle, otherwise the grass will always dominate.

In short, you don't get wildflower meadows type verges without active management and investment. What we have from councils is a cost cutting manoeuvre of simply not cutting the grass. (Although they have paid for signage stating that the grass is allowed to grow (for the pollinators!) It doesn't actually help very much and as PPs have pointed out, the extra pollen wafting around in the breeze is just added torment to hay-fever sufferers!

I have tons of pollinator friendly plants in my garden, including winter flowering ones (which nobody else seems bothered with, so they only want to help bees in summer apparently) and other beneficial measures so I have no guilt issues with keeping my grass cut regularly.

Your lawn sounds like mine. Its hardly any grass now, the clover is all over it. Lovely little yellow flowers too.

We have grown two huge wildflower patches in the lawn this year and the difference in wildlife is huge!

We also have a 'rough area' at the back of the garden that is full of nettles but it's also full of frogs and a family of hedgehogs down there. This is in an urban garden.

YANBU OP

We've now reach a point where the welfare of insects is worth more than that of fellow humans'.

The crazy climate change activism needs to stop!

I have hayfever and it's fucking miserable to live with but I wouldn't dream of expecting others to pander to it, it's my condition to live with, not theirs. Do you think we should ban ALL cars too because the pollution can set off peoples asthma?

when I have to reseed I reseed a clover and Daisy mix. It’s great.

I think OP has forgotten where the majority of the food comes from. Habitats for a variety of insects and small mammals trump every single allergy!
I rather have food than being considerate towards someone with allergies.

OP should watch The Bee Movie, the message is clear

It also encourages vermin when you keep the garden like a jungle. It encourages all animals to stay, not just cute fluffy bumblebees.

No.
and certainly not with that attitude.

DH gets hay fever. He medicates. Half our lawn is specially planted meadow grass and is mowed once a year in autumn. The other half is mowed fortnightly. Our garden is also full of flowers, flowering shrubs and trees.

a neighbours silver birch tree actually sets DHs allergies off the worst but we don’t ask them to chop down a tree that is probably as old as these houses.

re wilding doesn’t only have a “negligible” effect so we will carry on.

We'll cut our grass when we want to thanks.

I am allergic to tree pollen - should we cut all those down as well?

I think my neighbours would have been mightily fucked off if I decided to mow my lawn because you demanded it when you were ranting away in the early hours of the morning.

It also encourages vermin when you keep the garden like a jungle. It encourages all animals to stay, not just cute fluffy bumblebees

That's rather the point of biodiversity.

'mon the bees! 🐝

Life must be very hard for anyone as solipsistic as the OP.

Its an insect emergency. We need that pollen - it is food for insects.

I can’t believe you think anyone is obliged to cut their own grass ever. It’s just not an obligation. YABVU

What now???!

you know we are the pests on this planet? We are the ones fucking it up entirely.
we knew back in the 80’s, back in the 70’s. When we could have made minor adjustments. Now it’s too late. We’ve fucked it.

the planet will go on without us. but us, and our kids and grandkids are going to have a terrible time of famine, water shortages, wars. Until it finally gets rid of us (and a few other species as collateral damage)

insects are truly fascinating, they feel pain, some have social societies like us. Of course they are important. We can’t become NIMBYish over wildlife. That ship sailed, we all need to do our bit to at least attempt some mitigation for the fucked up trail left before.

(sorry op)

Well yes. That's the point. Humans are less important. Insects are needed to keep the Earth habitable for millions of species. Humans do the opposite.

If OP is anything like me they do nothing. I'm currently taking 3 a day and I'm still coughing, want to claw my eyes out and sound as though I've got a permanent cold.