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Should you’re studying this, likelihood is you’ve heard concerning the #NoMowMay motion that’s been gaining steam on social media and in eco-conscious circles these previous few years.
Began in 2019 by citizen scientists in the UK, the decision for householders to abstain from mowing their lawns through the month has unfold to different international locations, together with the U.S.
The intention is admirable: Let your grass and weeds develop and bloom to offer meals and shelter for important pollinators like bees and butterflies early within the season, when such requirements could also be scarce.
Frankly, I believe it’s a horrible concept.
A few of these pollinators you got down to shield will seemingly get shredded up with the primary mow of the season. Grass will little question get shaded by tall weeds, which may result in fungal ailments. And weeds and invasive crops that take maintain through the month received’t merely disappear as soon as the mowing commences. That may lead individuals to use chemical pesticides they wouldn’t in any other case use.
And what about rodents, snakes and different undesirables that additionally will seemingly avail themselves of the shelter?
Perplexed by the seemingly runaway-train reputation of the now-annual occasion, I known as Tamson Yeh, turf specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County in New York. “Is it me?” I requested.
“I believe it’s a horrible concept, too,” she stated. “It’s such a pleasant slogan, however letting the grass develop excessive and permitting it to do its factor, after which instantly mowing it again is absolutely counterproductive.”
Yeh sees the motion as a “feel-good, stop-gap measure, as a result of if you wish to have an effect, it’s good to set up a everlasting cowl for bugs,” not merely short-term housing.
“Bees inform one another the place the meals is, and pollinators (after they uncover an unmown garden) will bear in mind to return again to it time and again,” Yeh stated. “Then on June 1st, when the meals disappears, it’s not good for them.”
Hibernating bugs have reminiscences that span not solely from each day however from yr to yr, Yeh stated. So she recommends planting early blooming shrubs, timber and crops to ascertain a everlasting meals supply they’ll bear in mind and depend on as adults after they emerge from dormancy.
Different issues with the observe, Yeh famous, embrace “complicated bugs when the grass is instantly low once more. That offers predators the chance to reap the benefits of them.”
There’s additionally the potential to disturb a nest of bunnies when mowing, she stated, calling the invention “essentially the most horrible expertise you may have.”
An all-or-nothing strategy can be higher. Should you actually need to make a distinction, think about changing all the garden, or a part of it, with native crops or planting a wildflower meadow. Each will present permanency for birds and pollinators whereas shrinking or eliminating the garden, which frankly, has no redeeming worth except for subjective aesthetics, anyway.
When planting for useful bugs, Yeh advises making a hall or path of pollen- and nectar-rich crops for migratory pollinators to journey alongside as an alternative of spacing crops far aside.
Suspending fall cleanup till spring, which spawned one other motion known as #LeaveTheLeaves, will create protected havens for pollinators to put their eggs and hibernate inside. To permit time for them to emerge from dormancy, wait till after spring temperatures have remained above 50 levels for a complete week earlier than clearing away final season’s plant particles.
For these set on letting their lawns go wild this month, Yeh cautions that “permitting grass to go to seed will kill it,” so take away seedheads in the event that they kind.
It’s additionally necessary to reintroduce mowing progressively.
“One of the best peak for grass is 3 inches tall, however if you happen to’re mowing it down from 5 or 6 inches, do it over a number of periods,” she suggested, including that chopping grass by greater than one-third of its peak at one time may cause it to enter shock.
The gradual strategy “additionally will give bugs an opportunity to appreciate it’s not a very good place for them anymore,” she stated. Hopefully, they’ll take the trace and transfer on to safer areas.
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