Do you love mowing your lawn? It’s a chore, isn’t it? How about sitting back for a month and letting it grow?
Won’t it get messy? Not in a month. What will people think if my edges are untidy? Why not show you’re taking care by mowing a path through your grass, and cutting the edges? The photo above is of a village garden with areas of long grass, paths of short grass, a veg patch and more formal areas, taken at the end of last May. (This garden always has some areas of long grass in the middle – they’re cut once, at the end of summer.) You can leave more grass uncut, or less, according to the way you like to garden because every area of grass you leave uncut makes a difference.
Why bother? Because, amazing as it may sound, our gardens are at the forefront of saving wildlife. Even here in the countryside, a garden with space for wildlife is a vital resource – a haven for birds and butterflies, hedgehogs and insects.
We’ve lost 97 per cent of our wildflower meadows in Britain since 1930. Few of us can plant a meadow, but almost all of us can let our grass grow for a month – and it’s a huge help.
If you let your lawn grow for a month you’re letting beautiful wild flowers have space, and they welcome in the bees, hoverflies and butterflies that feed on them. If you count the insects before and after, you’ll see a huge increase, and it gets better year on year.
Serious gardeners are letting their grass grow in May – here’s this April’s Gardens Illustrated, telling us why it’s such a good idea.
You can find out lots more about No Mow May at Plantlife – and sit back and enjoy your garden!
Wild Groombridge 