If you haven’t heard of it before, the idea is to leave your lawn to grow for the month of may and allow weeds and plants to flower allowing food for our pollinators.
What is great is that you can help wildlife simply by taking a break from mowing all of your lawn or parts of your lawn. It is lovely to see what pops up on your lawn when you let nature be.
Having only moved last autumn, our lawn area is rather new to us. The lawn was already lacking in the grass and featured a lot more moss and other plants. But not cutting it allows these different plants to flower. In the long term, this area may be used for a pond or more space for growing food but for now, we are happy to let it be while we work on other areas.
Do you find it easy to let the grass grow? Some people have been mowing paths or leaving patches if they haven’t fully committed to not mowing at all. Having a messy lawn is not everybody’s cup of tea! Our back lawn has been cut once since we moved in and the front not at all. You can really see the difference between the two.
We have lots of different plants popping up on the lawn but the grass hasn’t actually grown that much. We have one thicker and darker patch which has grown tall and is adored by our cat Phoenix. She likes to indulge her inner panther and plays with that area a lot.
If you have taken part in No Mow May, now is the time to survey your lawn and report the results. You only need a 1m patch so even if you have mown parts of your lawn you can still take part! You simply count the flowers in a 1metre square patch and give your findings to Plantlife. You have until the 30th of May to share your results. For more information go to https://nomowmay.plantlife.org.uk/