No mow May

I just tend to get one dominate weed kill off everything else – certainly not like a traditional meadow, full of lots of different flowers.

This is undoubtedly due to too high soil nitrogen levels.

Well I’ve decided on no mow year. Just mowing around the edge of smaller areas and then in the larger back garden I’ve mowed a few paths through the wilderness. Will see how it pans out but being a fairly wild woodland garden which continues into the woods with no hedges or fences it kind of fits.
Can anyone remember the wildflower you can sow that will outcompete the grass?

Can anyone remember the wildflower you can sow that will outcompete the grass?

Yellow rattle will preferentially parasitise grasses over flowers but it won't outcompete them.

Lawns are good, maintained lawns are good

No they’re not and no they’re not. They are a very strange affection and just a chore. The whole bit of green outdoor carpet thing is just weird.

I blame the 18th century.

just let your (sic) garden go to shit!) isn’t helpful

It is helpful. OTOH I’m afraid you’re correct and it will be just a ‘fad’, misunderstood by most, misapplied by most, and forgotten before learned.

I’ve been doing no-mow-May. Someone else did it for me 😉

Patience, patience. I've mowed my lawn into blocks, mowing the edges, and an intersecting series of paths. It looks like I'm still bothering to cultivate the lawn, but the clover in it has just started to flower. I happily watched a handful of bumblebees start on it today. Last year I left it for all of May and June and it was an absolute seething carpet of bees and other pollenators. I've got a couple of cotoneaster bushes and they're just starting to flower. They're alive with bees. I've a patch that is left completely wild with nettles and brambles, and brash all my cuttings from any trees I prune, which means there's loads of rotting wood and cover for any wee beasties that appreciate it.

I try to mow the grass as little as possible, but have to keep it fairly short so I can see and pickup the turds the dog leaves behind.

I've got quite a small garden so I only leave a few acres to grow wild.

We compromised. 1970’s on the left. 2000’s on the right…

We did NMM but have had to chop it short while we sell the house. As soon as we can I’ll let it grow again. Lots of the ‘weeds’ in our lawn attract pollinators, which is cool but also mowing the lawn is worse than hoovering.

I dug our lawn up and bark mulched the lot a couple of years ago. Other than the vegetable beds we put in it's all left to grow however it wants, and I've wild flowered a couple of small bits. If it's part of where we walk it does get trampled though.

Well here is my effort, woodland garden with pathways mowed through the chaos.
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We came back from a week away to find the grass much longer than previous years (I've been doing No mow May for a good few years now), as it had rained a lot.
I'll need that chap from Poldark to scythe it around the edges.
Will try the strimmer on the outer sides and where the whirlie gig goes. The rest is left until the end of summer.

Goldfinches - someone noticed there are fewer. This is true. They had a very bad breeding season last year and numbers are down. I still saw them feeding on the dandelion seeds though, which is good.

Interesting what you say about goldfinches, Bunnyhop – I saw one in the garden just the other day and remarked to myself that I hadn't seen one in quite a while. Always a treat to see them.

Strummed mine at the weekend but have left two blocks long to help the wildlife

We’ve tons of goldfinches around us but then always have had a lot. Come to think of it haven’t seen so many large groups this year (30+) but haven’t particularly been looking out for them.

We're selling my mum and dad's place so I went up today to give it a tidy as it's had no garden work done at all this year. TBH the grass was mostly just very long grass and dandelions so I don't think it's that much of a habitat loss but I've got to say, felling it was incredibly satisfying. I can't usually be arsed with lawnmowing, turns out the secret is to leave it really late so that it makes a massive difference.

Swarms of sparrows and a blackbird family arrived pretty much as soon as I finished, I guess the fresh cut is appealing to them. I've left the garden beds pretty much wild though, much more variety of growth in there.

Our lawn is mainly native species or weeds as the analy clenched call them.
All our neighbours have well manicured front gardens so we've been bucking the trend anyway.

Even in this chilly weather there are plenty of insects hiding in this long grass.
Last night I used the hedge cutters to hack some of our overgrown grass and tonight will give them a high cut with the lawn mower, leaving 2 very small areas and my wild bit in the centre.
We also have a garden path which is totally over grown with wild strawberries, herbs, grasses and flowers.
Often plants and flowers will naturally seed themselves in the correct places and thrive, so I leave them.

Our effort - we rotovated a couple of patches last autumn and planted lots of native flowers - middling results - lot of grass but also some yellow rattle and various things i'd need to consult with my wife to recall what they're named (she's the gardener - i'm the mower!). Also got lots of buttercups and some oxeye daisys and the odd poppy. Main thing is that the toddler loves it!

Probably going to leave it until mid august and then do an epic mow. Slightly complicated by the fact that it went mad whilst we were on holiday and also that one of our trees has celebrated the jubilee by falling over.

Surprised to hear they had a bad year, we count the goldfinches in our garden (South Aberdeenshire) literally by the dozen.

I've let the grass grown in the summer for a few years now and we got our first purple orchid 4 years ago, its grown back every year, and we've got 2 now, well we did until one of the kids trod on one yesterday and snapped the flower spike off.

How lovely finding an orchid.
Finally got to high mow the lawn (around the wild bits) and there was enough for a bale of hay.
We don't have a proper patio area so have to put chairs and table out on the lawn in summer. Its amazing the amount of teeny creatures you get to see close by.
Had a huge moth fly out the other evening.

Mines absolutely full of tiny grasshoppers, small moths and really pretty damselflies ( no pond so not sure what they see in it?).

Only issue is the bloody bindweed is making advances.

The grass got cut today and I feel wonderful. The back ,the front, the verge and weeded the kerb.
Mowed around the buttercups at the back.
Will do no mow August when we are away .

Nearly time to think about 'no Mow May' again.

I saw that Sheffield council are 'considering' giving a council tax, water bill reduction to people who - go a bit wilder with their gardens, don't use pesticides, pellets or other chemicals that damage our soils and wildlife, don't pave over their gardens or use astroturf.
Research done by Sheffield University saw that 50% of most cities have lost green garden space, causing more pollution and adding to climate change.
The SCC want to promote a healthier urban landscape.

Hopefully this will spread to other councils.

"No mow May" was "no mow 2022" for us I think. Certainly I don't recall getting the mower out of the shed*. I think maybe our resident gardener gave it a one-two with a strimmer in late summer, perhaps.

It seems mostly self-regulating these days. Okay it won't win any awards for tidiest lawn, but it houses quite a lot of different wildlife, and isn't a thigh-high jungle, so it's fine.

It'd be interesting (and quite progressive) if SCC do indeed introduce such a council tax reduction. I'm not sure how you'd police it -- it's easy enough to check whether the garden is paved or not I suppose, but the rest is going to be an exercise in trust you'd imagine.

* an event involving such quantity of fruity language, alarming crashes, and protracted wrestling with allegedly inanimate objects, as to be worthy of easy recall for quite some time

I saw that Sheffield council are ‘considering’ giving a council tax, water bill reduction to people who – go a bit wilder with their gardens, don’t use pesticides, pellets or other chemicals that damage our soils and wildlife, don’t pave over their gardens or use astroturf.

I was only half listening when this was on the news, but I think it also extends to people who rip up shit garden carpet and replace it with actual grass.

We’ve had a no mow section at the end of the garden for a few years. It always starts off looking great – long grass etc, but slowly large weeds take over and then they die back in autumn leaving bare mud (having shaded all the grass to death).

The trouble with any 'gardening' is habitats take decades to millennia to develop, with species getting a tenuous foothold then over time they compete with each other and play dirty to win. Whether that's blocking the sunlight to anything below them, to changing the pH of the soil or actively adding chemicals that only they can tolerate. So gardening is always a loosing battle because you're always going against what nature would actually put there (which is usually a tree).

A natural meadow can only exist if you've got a healthy population of herbivores to eat all the saplings which will grow for example. The meadows in the fields behind our house are absolutely packed with oak saplings until the deer get them (or the farmer mows it, whichever comes first). Give it a few years left alone and it would be the beginnings of woodland. Chop those woods down and you'd get nettles and brambles take over as they'll outcompete anything.

The local sailing club has an annual battle with nature. The islands have been cleared of trees, which no means they grow a 10ft tall dense thicket of brambles. The lake is a shallow gravel pit, which means unless they put huge quantities of blue dye in it, then it will be choked with weed.

Crudely cut some of the ‘lawn’ with long shears the other day, to reduce the length, because I’d accumulated loads of wild flower seeds while out walking over the last year or so, and scattered them everywhere, hoping that some will take, then spread themselves, like the violets, cowslips and primroses.
I’ve now got violets growing everywhere, including between the patio slabs, and there’s cowslips growing up between the slabs with the violets. There’s more and more cowslips appearing across the lawn, and I’ve just received a box of yellow rattle which I’ve planted randomly, including in the centre of a couple of clumps of couch grass, which had spread out and killed the regular grass underneath. I’m going to get some packets of native grass seeds, like quaking grass, and spread that around as well. Bluebells are starting to spread out into the lawn, and snowdrops seem to be starting to spread out as well. I’m giving up on the dandelions because it seems they’re particularly beneficial to bees. Less work, more colour and more insects the better.
The more wildflowers I can encourage to grow, and native grasses, the better, the violets and cowslips literally appeared from nowhere, all I’ve done is leave them alone, the only ‘gardening’ I do now involves looking after the plants in pots around the patio, in particular my apple tree. I had lots of issues with aphids last year, causing leaf curl and other damage, although I did get a lot of apples, quite small ones, as it’s a small tree in a pot, but very tasty and juicy.
After some reading up, I’m using a mixture of vinegar and baby bath soap, (which I used at work for decals), in water in a pump-up spray bottle, and caught the aphids early, a couple of weeks ago, when I spotted ants on the tree. Works really well, nuked the aphids and the ants, so there’s no ants taking messages back to the nest.
A lot of flowers showing, and the tree’s leaves look healthy, so hopefully some nice apples later in the year.

Got some raspberry canes in a pot as well, so hopefully bowls of raspberries and cream later on.

Wow you guys must have some good weather. My grass hasn’t grown much yet this year. Not enough to warrant a mow anyway. It may well not need cutting until June. Does that count as a no mow May? If Spring doesn’t come to the highlands until June 😂

Have proudly left the bottom third unmown and won't touch till June, but the rest has not been too vigorous, two mows all year. Getting some wild flowers in the borders but the millions of seeds I've popped into my wild patch down the bottom have done next to nothing. 🙁 Think it's pretty dead soil under a big old laurel, but it gets sunlight, I hoped for more. 🙁

The cowslips and violets have spread spectacularly next to the drive and on the bank next to the busy A61. Cowslip seeds I scattered on the opposite verge have now spread very well too and hopefully distracts from the large area where NEDDC napalmed the verge last year. Hopefully the ladysmock will return up the garden as food for the orangetip butterflies- I’ve already seen one. The woodland is carpeted with violets, emerging bluebells and campion will be lovely soon. The managed neglect has taken over 30 years, but, the wildlife oasis in the midst of gardens where the sole objective appears to be cutting everything down is thriving with wildlife.

If I could get this to work but with other stuff other than dandelions, I might do it, but dandelions are crap. So I'll mow the grass and I'll plant insect-friendly verges

When we relayed the lawn last year we used a wild flower turf round the edges, seems to have taken really well with Great Burnett being a particular favourite of mine.

We are lucky enough to have a large garden, so have left a big square unmowed. Probably will end up patchy and full of moss but it keeps the wide happy. She want to make it a permanent feature....

We've sown wildflower seed around the pumptrack, still have to cut the grass but will hopefully have a flower border.

Undoubtedly a grumpy park walker will complain.

@northwind - please leave the dandelions! Apart from the promise of summer that they bring, they’re a very good early food source for insects. If you don’t want them to spread too much then dead head them before the seeds develop.

thanks to having 2 puppies over the last 8 months we have little lawn left to worry about cutting!

If I could get this to work but with other stuff other than dandelions, I might do it, but dandelions are crap. So I’ll mow the grass and I’ll plant insect-friendly verges

Insect friendly? Dandelions are great for pollinators.  I'm under strict instructions from Mrs Bloke who is a beekeeper to leave them in the verges, especially early in the season when there are fewer other sources of pollen about.  A weed is just a wild flower with a poor PR team.

Does that count as a no mow May? If Spring doesn’t come to the highlands until June 😂

Couldn't do NMM in Perthshire last year as we had the house on the market. Wasn't a big deal as we'd sold by June and I think No Mow June is more beneficial if you're further North. No mow July was good too.

We've moved to Inverness now so will follow a similar pattern. The previous owners of this house had a bit of a 'golf course' approach to gardening so we've got a few years of work ahead to get more life in the garden. I got rid of some of the moss in the lawn so hopefully have a bit of space for some daisies, dandeliions and clover to spring up in there. Over the next year I'll figure out which bits to leave unmown all year.

We pretty much had a nature enforced no mow March- it rained nearly every day. Definitely won't be doing no mow May.

I have done a couple of cuts this year already. Plenty of dandelions and bluebells out front.
On the habitat front, the pond dug last autumn has now got lots of tadpoles and water snails. Going to get a few more oxygenators in there this weekend as a couple didn't make it through the winter.
Unfortunately I had to fell our old apple tree as it was leaning towards the house and 2/3rds fell off anyway. So offset that with 3 new apple trees and a cherry. These were bare rootstock and 2years old, so got some way to go before being good for bees etc, but they are budding already.