Families and businesses are being encouraged to join the No Mow May campaign. The initiative urges people to leave their lawns unmown during May to “provide a feast for pollinators, tackle pollution, reduce urban heat extremes, and lock away atmospheric carbon below ground.”
The wildlife and conservation charity Plantlife came up with No Mow May in 2019. In No Mow May, households, businesses and public bodies, including Ashfield District Council, agree to allow lawns, or parts of lawns, to grow unrestricted during the month.
“No Mow May is the perfect starting point to get your greenspace on track for a wild summer”, Plantlife say, describing the initiative as “a national movement to bring colour and life back into our green spaces.”
They say: “We don’t need to venture far afield to make space for nature. Our lawns and green spaces can be colourful kingdoms of organisms all coexisting, bursting with life and potential. Take a closer look. Your lawn is an ecosystem in itself – below the ground there’s a complex world of fungi and microbes living among the roots.
“Above the soil, plants form mini jungles which shelter, feed, and support all kinds of beasties from insects to birds and mammals. Our valuable green spaces can be teeming with life across the seasons – if we only give them a little room to grow.”
They say that with more than 23 million gardens in the UK, “even the smallest grassy patches add up to a significant proportion of our land which, if managed properly, can deliver enormous gains for nature, communities, and the climate.”
And when May is over, the charity is encouraging people to have different lengths of lawn in their garden. “Data shows that the lawns with the highest number of wildflowers are those which have patches of various grass lengths”, they say. “Introducing a variety of different grass lengths in your garden creates lots of different microhabitats in which a large range of species can live and thrive.”
Ashfield District Council say that they will participate in No Mow May by leaving areas of grass to grow long in Teversal Trail, Titchfield Park in Hucknall, Sutton Lawn, Kingsway Park in Kirkby, and Selston Country Park; as well as parts of the A611 and A608 bypasses.
Signage will be installed in the areas of long grass to let residents know that it is being left on purpose.
The council will continue to cut grass necessary for safety reasons, such as on the corners of roads, and on residential areas.
“We are really proud to be supporting No Mow May this year”, Craig Bonar, Ashfield District Council’s executive director for transformation, said. “This is just one of the ways we will be increasing biodiversity in the district.” He said that the council “is committed to enhancing our natural environment and reducing our carbon emission, No Mow May will help play a part in this.”
