Say "No" to No Mow
As folks are starting their lawn care for the year, many may consider joining the #NoMowMay movement: letting the lawn grow free to make food and habitat available to bees, butterflies, and other wildlife.
The no mow movement started in the UK and has made its way across the Atlantic to the USA. What works in the UK as a method to "feed the bees" doesn't work as well here in the USA.
Lawns are primarily made up of non-native grasses and other herbaceous plants from Eurasia. Letting the grass grow and dandelions flourish in Britain is absolutely doing something for bees and other insects, which have co-evolved with those plants. Here in America, we need native plants to support native insects.
Where are the native plants when we let the lawn grow? I am glad you asked! Soil is alive with insects and microorganisms, and it serves as an incubator for native plants, too. Seeds in the soil waiting for the right time to germinate make up what we call a "seed bank." Due to lawn care regimes, the surrounding landscape, and time passed since land was a natural area, the seed bank of many lawns is devoid of native seed. Without native seed, there's no native plants waiting to flourish.
As lawn owners, we have enormous opportunity to shift the balance of floristic diversity back to native plants that support our local ecosystems! Instead of the traditional No Mow May, consider a tweaked version of it:
- Start site prep for a lawn conversion in May! You'll not be mowing and you'll be on your way to a beneficial, native landscape that's #NoMowingEver.
- Expand your existing flower beds to take up a little more lawn. Pack them full and tight with native plants. Native plants don't need as much maintenance as non-native plants.
- Take care of the lawn you do have, but in a different way. Set your mower height to 4" and only mow when it gets to 6". Skip the fertilizers and herbicides. Let the clover, violets, and dandelions be, too.
In America, #NoMowMay has some benefits, but it isn't a stop-gap measure to benefit pollinators and wildlife. Instead, take small steps to reduce your lawn and plant a diversity of native plants around your home.
