May is the time of year when your grass is enjoying its optimum growing period. The sun is shining, the ground is still moist from the spring rain and photosynthesis is converting sunlight into energy like nobody’s business.
May is the time you can build strength in your lawn, and by keeping it regularly mown, you can do wonders for the natural growth - encouraging the grass to grow outwards, rather than upwards.
No Mow May is a recent trend, intended to encourage grass and wild plants to seed and produce flowers for the insects and bees to pollinate. Great idea in theory, but what happens at the end of May? The grass has been busy investing a lot of energy into growing - and without being cut, it will grow vertically, as high as it can, producing seed to try and propagate. Come the end of May, you may want to enjoy your lawn for the summer, but when you cut it back to a sensible length it more than likely dies back. All that chlorophyll stored in the leaves disappears and the grass has to start its journey to strength all over again. Except this time, the growing conditions are not so great. As we enter the hottest months of the year, the moisture is sparser in the soil; and unless some substantial effort and human intervention takes place - in terms of watering and adding nutrients back into the soil - the lawn will inevitably yellow and thin. And all those insects that moved in – they’ve suddenly lost their new habitat!
So what if we stop mowing altogether for the summer months and let the insects and wild plants flourish? Unfortunately, the idealistic view of a wildflower meadow with poppies and cornflowers dancing in the breeze is surprisingly tricky to achieve. A lawn left to its own devices
will typically become dominated by a few hardy and often less desirable species such as dock leaves, thistles or nettles.
Then the woody perennial weeds will start to take over - brambles and shrubs, which rapidly become dense and inaccessible. The lovely wildflower meadow that you’d hoped for couldn’t be further from the truth! Homeowners disillusioned with a garden full of nettles and brambles will eventually get fed up with an unattractive and unusable space leading to re-turfing and starting over, or replacing the whole lot with gravel or worse still the dreaded astro-turf. Not exactly the eco-friendly approach the ‘No Mow May’ campaign was going for.
Yes, leaving the grass and weeds to grow will allow more insects to enjoy the lawn for a few weeks. But surely a more sustainable solution would be to look after your lawn, so you create a beautiful space from where you can cultivate and nurture your garden. Plant a variety of flowers and shrubs in the border that give year round opportunities for insects to build a habitat, and perhaps leave a patch of the lawn for wilding - but in a controlled, sustainable space that can last more than a month - and which you can take pleasure in creating.
A cynic may say that a lawn care expert would, of course, be against No Mow May in a bid to promote regular lawn care. In reality however, the flawed concept of not mowing for a month will inevitably lead to a multitude of damaged lawns in need of refurbishment, a boon for any lawn care provider. But this isn’t a business stance, it’s about doing what is right and sustainable for the broader ecosystem and for the long term health of your lawn. An environment that’s loved and enjoyed is an environment that can be maintained in the long run.
So, here’s a new campaign - Mow More May - and June and July and August! And enjoy a beautifully healthy lawn for the summer ahead - with plenty of flowering plants dotted around to keep the bees happy and maybe a corner left to go wild. Who’s with me?
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