It’s the middle of May, and you might be looking around your neighborhood and seeing some unkempt lawns. It may look untidy compared to a mowed lawn, but there is a good reason for a person letting the grass grow until June. No mow May makes it easier for early-season pollinators to find food sources, creates habitats for numerous critters, reduces water consumption, and improves biodiversity. It can be easier than regular mowing,
The Importance
One lawn can be home to birds, mammals, reptiles, and all sorts of insects that need habitats for reproduction in the spring. Allowing your grass to grow to seed lets seedheads be produced, seeding your lawn once cut. Longer grass also shades the soil, making a lawn more drought-resistant. Lastly, a gas-powered mower produces not only carbon emissions, but noise pollution as well. You can save yourself a huge headache by not touching your lawn for a few weeks. Letting your lawn grow can even reveal plants growing on your land that you didn’t know you had! In a country where turfgrass lawns run rampant, many pollinators are struggling to find field and prairie habitats, threatening their survival. Your lawn can mean the difference in a healthy pollination year
Low Commitment Ideas
Not ready to commit to the idea? Try doing a “low mow spring/May”, where you mow every two weeks instead of once a week. Or increase the cut height on your mower to leave flower heads unscathed. You can even leave a patch, a strip, or a square of uncut lawn alone, while cutting the rest; it’ll look like a natural garden bed! MUD has all the tools you need for your lawn. From electric and gas mowers with adjustable heights to string trimmers and edgers to make your lawn borders nice and neat.
What Comes After No Mow?
Not mowing follows the trend of moving away from monoculture lawns, encouraging native plants to take the place of grass. Combining the two practices can mean having clover, violet, and creeping phlox crop up rather than dandelion heads. Interested in changing up the composition of your garden, or tired of seeing dandelions all over your lawn? Our tool library has lawn aerator shoes available, which will improve soil health, but also make it easier to seed your lawn. Clover, buttercups, and phlox are great at outcompeting stubborn weeds.
There’s still time to let the grass grow this May, so raise that cut height, leave an area untouched, and aerate. Let nature go to work, and you may be happily surprised with the results, and plants and animals will thank you, too!
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