No mow May

Nah

If I leave it long all the neighborhood cats use it.

I’ll be keeping the lawn I let the hound onto short.
Last time it was long I didn’t see the hedgehog he subsequently tried to bring indoors, and a lurking cat would quickly become an ex cat.

Front lawn I’ll cut a post to park a car and leave the rest.

I then hang the dead carcasses on the fence as a warnign to other dandelions.

Made me chortle!

Is the short uniform desert lawn a purely British thing? Or is it universal?

I’m leaving ours for a bit. Good for the insects and it annoys the neighbours for a bonus win

I’m in.

We started a simple no mow may strategy for the front lawn I think two years ago.

Last year we sowed wild flowers and didn’t mow all summer, the only thing that took was wild carrot and they put on a gorgeous display of white flower heads in late summer. The sheer number of bugs and crickets was incredible. The birds loved feeding on them too.

So this year we’ve doubled down. The wild flower seeds were down in autumn again. The yellow rattle plug plants have been in for a couple of weeks now and seem to be taking ok. The grass was mowed to within an inch of its life just before the yellow rattle went in. There certainly won’t be a mow in may, possible not until September. Although some advise mowing a meadow six weeks in to encourage flower growth so we’ll see.

For those pointing out they can’t because of various reasons, fair enough, to be clear this is my front lawn which I don’t really need for anything so can give to nature. I have a back lawn for the kids to play on and more wild areas out back.

I cut mine twice a week, EVERY, week. Never gets above 10mm. I absolutely love it.

I think I may be a sociopath.

Why people spend so much of their time and effort fighting a war against dandelions or daisies? Surely there’s more pressing wars to fight!?

I barely have enough time for an occasional futile squirmish with brambles, stingers, and ivy.

But is there a sign I can put up, that my judgey middle-class neighbours might not judge me?

Ours spent most of the summer with a border cut round and wiggly path through the middle. The nasty spiky soft rush had a field (!) day, spread loads – 5,000 seeds per head, apparently- so this year I’m making a concerted effort to get rid of that. It grows faster than anything else, so will leave for May and then use a weed wiper, to keep nasties off anything else.

Happy with daisies, buttercups are lovely but taking over in some patches, Dandelions I’m conflicted about. Happy enough with everything else. Definitely keeping an eye out for the Ragged Robin that popped up last year.

took bloody ages to get the grass back to anything like playable on after it got so long last year, so I’ll be a bit more careful this year, and only leave patches at a time unmowed.

I cut mine twice a week, EVERY, week. Never gets above 10mm. I absolutely love it.

I think I may be a sociopath.

There was someone on gardener’s world who cut his grass twice a day.

Why people spend so much of their time and effort fighting a war against dandelions or daisies? Surely there’s more pressing wars to fight!?

Well, maybe, but the whole concept of a garden is a designed space that is not just abandoned to nature. We have a mix of orderly and wild spaces. There are plenty of dandelions in the latter.

But the dandelions get the fiskars treatment. I then hang the dead carcasses on the fence as a warnign to other dandelions.

old school…

Mole catcher! by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

But is there a sign I can put up, that my judgey middle-class neighbours might not judge me?

Something like this:

I was discussing this with a colleague in Ireland recently and he said there is a big stigma there about everything needing to be neat. Its a real problem for creating wild areas and wildlife corridors

We’re lucky enough to have a fair sized back garden so I’m able to leave a good chunk to grow without impacting on the kids ability to run wild and tire themselves out. We have a few fruit trees, every year MrsMomo plants more bulbs and sows it with more wildflower seeds. I cut it back just before the fruit starts falling, otherwise I end up with a load of rotting fruit by the bottom of the trees.

Our garden is quite large, so we’ve left the top bit to be long with a few paths in it. My wife rotovated a couple of patches and dumped a a load of wild flower seed on it last autumn. So far it looks like we’ve just planted grass, but fingers crossed!

Yep. Totally pointless spin. My lawns are just starting to recover after no mowing from October to April. My house is in the estate in bottom right here. The wildlife has most of the the rest of the screen. Seems plenty.

The wildlife has most of the the rest of the screen. Seems plenty.

Its more to do with biodiversity than area. A small area can make a big difference

I am cultivating my perfect lawn at the moment so it’s a no from me. There’s no point in having grass unless you’re going to make it like a nice lawn, plant other stuff instead of you don’t like mowing.

Fine if you want to play bowls. The perfect lawn is one that requires little maintenance, and has lots of flowers that benefit other creatures. I do have areas without grass, they’re being taken over by wild seeded cowslips, primroses, oxslips, violets, celandines, muscari, bluebells, and things like fritillaries that I’ve planted. I’m going to try to encourage the likes of moon daisies, Ragged Robin and other meadow flowers as well.

What’s a moon daisy?

I just cut ours yesterday and I will leave it now that I know about it.

One of our neighbours has generously been doing the No mow May………since 2021!

It’ll be interesting to see if any unusual plants show themselves through the uncut grass/lawn.

I’m in. Last year the back lawn was a mass of clover and I left that for the bees (it was absolutely teeming with them). This year I’ll give the lawn a tidy on the highest setting as the clover is still short enough to duck under the blades, then cut round the edges only. The rest of the garden is (or will be) planted with annuals and pollinator friendly wildflowers. I’ve got a steeply sloping banking 30m by 50m which is currently full of blossoming trees and although I strim the majority of that, there’s a couple of patches left as “wilding” spaces, and a big pile of brash and brambles for the stuff that likes to live in there. I generally leave the dandelions to finish seeding before I strim the banking, as it attracts flocks of finches.

After a bit of rain this week, No Mow May could require a combine harvester by the end!

We’ve just made a corner of our garden a ‘no mow’ space and I’ve spread a packet of wild flower seeds – it’s a great idea and we’re looking forward to seeing the results.

Well I got the (six month old) mower out of the shed to give the lawn its first mow last weekend and the front wheel fell off. Should be a warranty job, but the repair guy reckons it will take “at least two weeks”. So I guess I’ll be trying this no mow May whether I like it or not 🙂

No Mow May could require a combine harvester by the end!

This! The starlings looking for worms are managing to sneak about pretty much undetected.

I’ve got the usual suspects – daisies, buttercups and dandelions; but also some forget-me-nots and daffodils, and a geranium which set up camp a few years ago and I just mow round. I’ve got some poppy seeds which I’ll sow shortly.

We put the front lawns down with flowering lawn seed a couple of years ago. Hopefully we’ll see some nice flowers and wildlife action there this year. It’s been trimmed in April, won’t be cut now until September probably. Will trim next to the the path though as postie is the only person who uses the front door.

Round back last year was mostly moss. After treating its mostly back to grass this year but after a good rake there’s loads of patches, so has been cut short and over seeded. I leave a strip along the back (wildlife corridor) that’s got wildflowers and rotten wood/logs for insects. Found a few frogs there yesterday and evidence of mice. It was a Leylandi hedge a few years back, but after I took that down I just left it to see what would grow. Already a couple of elders and rowan… Going for a natural hedge.

We need to see photos later in the summer, of the fruits of our non-labour. :o)

…so what happens now…?

We “did” NMM, mostly out of laziness, but partly to see what happens.

We don’t have a wildflower meadow. We do have a mess of knee high straggly grass (where’s it’s not overrun by moss) and a HELL of a lot of dandelions. And a path trampled through the middle to get to the bikewash area.

I suspect mowing it will kill my cheapo lawnmower stone dead – it struggles with more than a couple of inches of growth – even on the highest setting (only about 15mm higher than the lowest).

I’m all for biodiversity and nature etc, but it needs to look like a planned thing, not just a forgotten wasteland.

(annoyingly the verges out on the street opposite us were full of wildflowers earlier in the month. Then the council came along and gave it all the full Brazilian treatment, which it hasn’t recovered from yet)

so what happens now…?

Leave it.

After ‘No Mow May’ comes ‘Soon Bloom June’.

One way of making the longer lawn look intentional is to cut defined paths in it which also aids moving around – as an interesting fact for the pub quiz – it takes the equivalent of 8 dandelions to feed a bee for a day!
My front verge has mostly been protected from the council mowers by some lightweight fenceposts but the other areas of verge adjacent to the roundabout have been mercilessly killed with what must be Napalm. Before I went away there were cowslips, evening primrose, fox and cubs, buttercups, violets and lots more. Now it’s a brown desert. There’s no reason other than “neatness” – no obstructions of sightlines or pedestrian access. N.E.D.D.C. – Environmental criminals.

an interesting fact for the pub quiz – it takes the equivalent of 8 dandelions to feed a bee for a day!

And over the course of its lifetime a bee will on average produce a quarter of a teaspoon of honey.

Think about that the next time you clean the honey off a spoon – you could be washing off a bee’s entire lifetime’s work.

They don’t live very long.

Yep. Totally pointless spin. My lawns are just starting to recover after no mowing from October to April. My house is in the estate in bottom right here. The wildlife has most of the the rest of the screen. Seems plenty.

The interesting thing about the image you share is it’s a mix of monoculture conifer plantations (sometimes referred to as ecological deserts as very little lives among the trees), and open areas overgrazed most likely by sheep and deer. So if your garden is fenced off it to protect from sheep and deer it could well be more biodiverse than the rest of the picture. And if a larger area was fenced off to protect from grazing, it would return to what it was like in pre agricultural times with mixtures of native trees and other growth. Mountainsides were not always as barren-looking as they are today.

I mowed ours the other day, it had utterly exploded in the intervening weeks. Diversity is pretty poor, we have a small smattering of clover, a bit of hawkweed (fox and cubs), a couple of Welsh poppies and a ton of dandelions. We do get a load of bees but not seen any gold finches this year.

We have an 8 acre field to take care of as well, that’s getting a path round the perimeter cut and has some new arrivals in the form of wheatears (I think, brown with a black triangle at the tail with a white V at the top?) plus the usual stoats or whatever is making the wee holes all about the place.

Ours pissed off the neighbours which was my main aim all along.

Next dry spell I think I’ll take the strimmer to it. Supposedly you’re only supposed to cut off the top third and leave it for a week before repeating but I’m not sure if I can be bothered with that.

Mowed yesterday but had to leave a little patch of buttercups for OH.

I’m partaking in now mow June too. Broke my ankle yesterday. Signed up to TT live now so swings and roundabouts hey?

@slowoldman is your OH a bee?

Had a  conversation last night with the man who cuts our grass when we’re not in France. He said it had grown a fair bit since we last cut it before we left in mid /late April. He sent this part cut photo.

Living 7 floors up on the soithern edge of Manchester city centre my lawn exists in a plant pot.

Not all bad news though, the giant roundabout on one side was turned into a wildflower meadow a few years back and is teaming with wild plants and on the other side there’s a couple of acres of wildflower meadow that backs on to a school.

The are both maintained and contained by the council as well, so hey don’t look feral or unkempt.

There’s no point in having grass unless you’re going to make it like a nice lawnwildflower meadow

ftfy 😉

How to create a wildflower meadow in your garden