No mow May

@slowoldman is your OH a bee?

She’s my honey.

Cut mine down yesterday – the dust and pollen blocked the filters on my hover mower.

There weren’t many weeds and flowers in the lawn, so not sure it did much for wildlife. Seen more birds getting food out the lawn since it was cut.

Probably wouldn’t bother again

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).

Not quite figured out the right maintenance routine to keep it healthy grass all year round.

One year it was nettles and in the end I dug them all up inc all their feeders spreading left right and centre.

We seem to get a lot of Blue Alkanet in the garden, which the bees like, but it smothers all the grass in the no mow area very quickly.

I’ve been not mowing my front garden (quit sniggering, yes, you) since a drought a few years back caused the grass to die but the weeds to live. The difference is dramatic – the front garden hums with grasshoppers and hover flies. The back has no grasshoppers, and far fewer hover flies. Apart from the mowing, both front and back gardens are equally planted up with plenty of flowers and left to grow in a nature friendly manner. If you can bring yourself to leave a patch uncut through the summer I think you’ll notice the difference. Mine is cut into a neat circle, with herbaceous plants all around, so it looks more deliberate and less of a forgotten thing.

I’m a miserable dinasour, but this NMM business and ‘wilding’ (interpreted by many to just let your garden go to shit!) isn’t helpful and is just a fad.

Lawns are good, maintained lawns are good. (Ask blackbirds). By all means set aside an area for wildflowers & do what you can for hogs/bees/butterflies etc, but NMM just creates a mess and discourages those that thought they were helping from doing it again – ‘cos their lawn/garden is left looking like crap.

Even simply potting some wildflowers helps – doesn’t take a lot. And lasts all spring and summer rather than one month.

*Bores off into the background*

Edit: Good timing Mr Bee.

That’s not Mr Bee, that’s @slowoldman s other half!

OMG that tea break Gardner thing makes me want to cry

Many of the best natural wildflower meadows thrive on poor soils. I live in the Chiltern Hills where chalk grasslands support a series of biodiverse meadow habitats replete with pretty wildflowers on the thin calcareous soils

How so much can be so wrong in two sentences, is beyond me!!

Meadows are hard to recreate people, scarify, throw seeds around and pray is your best hope. No mow May is undoubtedly good for biodiversity but you are not going to suddenly create meadow vegetation.

Footflaos, lack of grass is the point!

Much of what you wrote bearnecessities is illconcieved lawns are not good for biodiversity. However you are correct in saying that no mow may creates the wrong impression with most gardners

Footflaos, lack of grass is the point!

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

Eg Blue Alkanet takes over which is great whilst it’s flowering – bees love it. But once that finished there is nothing else left. I think the area is too shaded to be a decent meadow.

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.