No Mow May – how to help wildlife by doing nothing at all

Why this month I will casting aside my proverbial lawnmower (I don’t own one) and joining the #NoMowMay campaign

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Wildflowers beginning to emerge in the meadow at RHS Garden Hyde Hall

You have found me in full campaign mode: feet up, cup of tea in hand, half-nobbled biscuit on a plate. I know. I mean business.

You see, I am strongly of the opinion that the most successful campaigns are the ones that require participants to do nothing at all. A campaign that involves direct action, like super-gluing yourself to an airport runway, or camping out in a tunnel under a proposed building site? These are commendable, but seem like a lot of faff. They are the sorts of campaigns to which I will lend my full support, but from a distance. 

Campaigns that involve no action whatsoever, on the other hand, are far more likely to gain traction with a mass audience. For evidence, see Dry January, where the only thing you have to do to take part is not drink alcohol for a 31-day period. See also Veganuary, where in order to participate the only requirement is that you not eat animal products for a month. I don’t know about you, but I for one am very good at not doing stuff.

And as it happens, by far my favourite passive-participation campaign of all is happening right now: No Mow May. The brainchild of conservation charity Plantlife, #NoMowMay asks participants to do something very simple: lock up your lawnmowers, set aside the strimmer, and for 31 days, let your lawns turn into beautiful and biodiverse wildflower meadows. 

Regular readers will be aware of my feelings towards lawns. Needless to say, I’m not a fan. Quick recap: boggy when wet, dusty and decrepit when dry, unduly labour intensive, and offering next to no benefit to insects and animals. 

Why are they so wildlife-unfriendly? In part, because a neatly trimmed lawn is too short for critters to hide in (not to mention the bloody decimation one can cause with a motorised mowing device); but most importantly, short grass means no flowers. And pollinators need nectar. 

Most people are aware, to at least some degree, of the plummeting numbers of invertebrate species in the UK, due to a combination of habitat destruction and profligate “pesticide” use. (Note: pesticides tend not to discriminate; they are as likely to kill a welcome pollinator as they are a so-called pest.) One of the things that many of us do to mitigate against this is to choose pollinator-friendly plants when we browse seed catalogues or shop at the garden centre, and don’t get me wrong, that is laudable.

But wildlife loves wild flowers. Daisies, dandelions, buttercups, clover – your classic lawn-invaders – are all beloved of bees and butterflies and beetles and lots of other friendly beasties besides. If for one month we leave the lawn unmown, some of these wildflowers – more commonly referred to as weeds – have a chance to blossom and so provide a bountiful supply of nectar for a plethora of invertebrates. 

To put the need for the campaign into perspective, according to Plantlife, just 1% of the British countryside today consists of wildflower meadows, with an estimated 7.5 million acres of flower-rich pastures having been lost since the 1930s. That is sobering and depressing in equal measure, and significant too, because during summer, just one acre of wildflower meadow can contain three million flowers. 

But no meadow, no nectar. No nectar, no pollinators. No pollinators, no plants. Meanwhile, there are an estimated 15 million gardens in Britain. That's a lot of lawns, and potentially a lot of much-needed food for a lot of insects.

So, if you have a lawn, why not let it grow? It doesn’t even have to be the whole thing – just a patch, a strip, a corner. Your garden is a supermarket full of food for insect shoppers, and every little helps. Plus, you might be pleasantly surprised by what pops up.

At the end of the month, Plantlife will be encouraging No Mow May participants to take part in the “Every Flower Counts” survey – a citizen science project that seeks to take a snapshot of the number and variety of wildflower species growing in our gardens. In 2021, wild lawn owners recorded some really lovely – even yes, ornamental! – wildflowers, including bee orchids and snake’s-head fritillaries. You never know which plants’ potential you may have been cutting short all these years.

As for me, I’m what you might call an early adopter. (Though I’m mainly what you might call lazy.) Like a moustachioed Movember member who goes against the grain by casting their razor aside from mid-October, I’ve given myself a head start on No Mow May. I haven’t touched a hair on our lawn’s head since last summer. It looks scruffy, it is full of weeds – no, wildflowers – but for this month at least, and until I can next be arsed to cut it again, it is on its way to becoming a haven for all manner of flora and fauna.

So, if you want to do your bit for wildlife this month, you can join me and many others by doing one very powerful thing: nothing.

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What do you make of No Mow May? Will you be joining me in lowering your lawn-care standards? Leave a comment and let me know!