Not mowing the lawn strengthens plant biodiversity and helps many insects survive. In 2019, British nature conservation organization Plantlife kicked off the campaign, which has had a big response in the homeland of the meticulously manicured lawn. Meanwhile, the Bee City organization has taken the campaign to several US states, and this year, for the first time, two German organizations – the Rhineland-Palatinate Garden Academy and the German Horticultural Society 1822 – are also calling for a “Mow -free of May”.
The Plantlife campaign asks you to document how many flowering plants dare to go outside in their free time mowing. There are also tips on how to keep your uncut lawn from getting too messy for you or your neighbors. For example, carefully marking the wild part of the lawn. And there’s an appeal to doing something nice for nature with a little more laziness – “lazy gardening” has been a trend for some time and it probably hits a nerve, especially among younger generations.
ORF.at/Günther Rosenberger It’s not just bees that fly in the flowers
Domestic counterpart: natural park garden
The “No Mow May” movement has not yet reached Austria. However, the environmental organization Global 2000 started a very comparable project in May 2019: National Park Garden. The aim is to create more biodiversity and, therefore, more habitat and food for insects: whether through a “wild corner” in the garden, the renunciation of fertilizers and peat and also as little mowing as possible.
Cutting as little as possible makes ecological sense for several reasons, Global 2000 biologist Dominik Linhard told ORF.at. There are advantages to cutting perennials, grasses and lawns as late as possible after winter. Many animals hibernate there, like the ladybird. “Of course, if you clean up early, the animals are gone,” says Linhard. Many insects are still unprotected in May because they only come out of hibernation at this time.
Getty Images/iStockphoto/limpido A path through a meadow can still bring out the flowers
Cut and uncut mosaic
Also, you cut the first shoots. You don’t have them or they don’t reach seed maturity, which means they can’t multiply. For the butterfly, bee and bumblebee species, which are already on the move relatively early, there is not enough flowering: at the moment there are only dandelions, “you don’t see many other species,” says Linhard. Because “more sensitive species can’t take all the cutting”.
Meadows that are more species-rich could only emerge if they were mowed at most twice a year – but many would mow at least ten times a gardening season. According to Linhard, the right time is also important: the right time for the first cut – depending on the climate and location – is the time when the daisies are in bloom, that is, June or July. The second cut would then be in the fall.
natural park garden
Some 2,700 garden owners, schools, communities and associations have participated in the Global 2000 campaign so far. In total, this results in an area of almost 4.8 million square meters.
Extensive meadows have 40 to 50 species, but can be as many as 100. Linhard points out that it’s not about not cutting the grass and leaving the whole garden to nature. He recommends a “mosaic”: a mix of areas you use for play or other leisure activities (mowing the lawn more often), an area where flowers can grow more freely and which is only mowed twice a year. And then he recommends a “wild corner” that is not cut for a year or a year. But a few square meters would be enough for that, “insects don’t need a lot of space”.
The expert also recommends not cutting one area at a time, but only a part – this allows insects to escape to the uncut part. And you can lie back and listen to the buzzing and buzzing of insects – as long as your neighbor isn’t mowing the lawn.