No Mow May? Not so fast!
As with many things, it may be a bit more nuanced than you think.
If you have not heard of "No Mow May," it is a movement to not cut your grass in May to promote flowers in your lawn to help early season pollinators when there are less floral resources for them. But it turns out that there is much more to consider when deciding exactly how you might engage in No Mow May. if No Mow May is something that you should be participating in. See here for some of those explanations which includes a list of five questions to consider such as:
How tall is your grass at the end of April and are you going to be okay with the consequences of letting it grow for an entire month?
Do you have any flowers in your lawn that bloom during May or is your yard a complete monoculture of grass?
What is blooming where you live in May? Is May really when you have a lack of floral resources available to your local pollinators?
If you are wondering what to do to help pollinators instead of letting the lawn go, there are many options available. One suggestion is to move your mower setting higher and to mow less often in May and all season-long. There was even a study done at UMass Amherst - mow less often - showing the benefits of being a "lazy" mower!
DID YOU KNOW? Letting your grass grow a little taller before cutting it helps to promote healthier root growth. Healthier root growth can help against the damage from grubs!
You can also work to include more flowering species in your lawn or reduce lawn area by expanding garden beds. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has a good description of how to support pollinators in early spring here.
As Xerces says, "No Mow May provides an opportunity to start a community-wide conversation about lawns. By encouraging a wider understanding of the changes that can be made to support pollinators—reducing lawn area, less-intensive approaches to lawn management, avoiding pesticides, planting flowers, etc.—and providing people with the tools and information to make the necessary changes, in time, we can create incremental change that will allow more natural landscaping in our neighborhoods. And then bees will be happier."
