It’s that time of year when well-meaning people start pushing No Mow May. Don’t fall for the hype. This movement was started in the UK to get people to help pollinators by not mowing their lawns in May, but it doesn’t apply well to North America.
Why not? Well, turfgrasses, dandelions, and many of the other plants growing in our lawns are not native so not the food sources our native pollinators evolved with. Bumblebees, for example, have been in North America about 20 million years, long before the arrival of dandelions (the primary beneficiary of No Mow May).
Other issues with dandelions:
- Their pollen is less nutritious than that of native plant flowers, so leaving them un-mowed is like opening tiny fast food joints all across your yard.
- They easily outcompete many native plants through:
- Being able to thrive in almost any growing conditions, reproducing quickly, and having deeper roots than some other plants.
- Having allelopathic roots and pollen that can harm native plants. For example, dandelion pollen has been shown to suppress seed setting in some native plants.
Check out this informative dandelion fact sheet.
Temporary housing: Not all that helpful to critters
Creating habitat and then mowing it after a month is actually kind of sadistic. What happens to the insects that have come to rely on the unmowed lawn? And it’s not just insects who could be impacted by sudden mowing—ground-nesting birds and baby bunnies may also be lured by the long grass and in for a rude shock come June 1.
Mowing after a month is hard on turfgrasses as well. They can go into shock when they lose more than a third of their height. Stressing your lawn this way just as the heat is ratcheting up makes little sense.
Instead of No Mow May, let’s observe Grow Natives May or Less Lawn May
Rather than focusing on protecting mostly non-native lawn plants like dandelions, consider reducing the size of your lawn and filling it with native plants—the ones our native insects and other wild creatures are actually adapted to.
Key spring-blooming native plants include trees (for example, maples, birches, serviceberries), shrubs (like pussy willow and red-osier dogwood), and wildflowers (spring beauty, Dutchman’s breeches, trillium, trout lily, bloodroot, marsh marigold, etc.).
The Sault/Algoma Grow Me Instead Guide published by Clean North recommends native plants for gardeners and property owners in this area (Algoma District of Ontario). Yellow trout lily is an example of a native wildflower that blooms the same time as dandelions and is abundant in Algoma District.
We hope we have convinced you that while No Mow May is well intended, there are better ways to support pollinators.
Questions?
Email us at info@cleannorth.org.
