No Mow May
Additional information about this campaign
What is No Mow May?
No Mow May is simply not mowing your lawn during the month of May, allowing flowers to bloom in your lawn to help early season pollinators.
Why should I take part?
Mowing your lawn less allows flowering plants to bloom, providing pollinators with the nectar and pollen that they rely on to feed themselves and their offspring. The more varied structure created by longer grass will support more than just bees, including ground beetles as well as some species of butterflies that use grasses as host plants.
What can I do to educate my neighbors and passersby about my yard choices and how they benefit pollinators?
Taking the simple step of communicating why you’ve made the landscaping choices you have
to your neighbors and passersby can help them understand that you have made an intentional
decision to create habitat for wildlife. Putting up signs can be an easy and effective way to
educate others about the benefits of reducing mowing. Here is a link to download a sign to promote No Mow May. There are also plenty of examples of home made signs.
Planting Native Species
No Mow May is just a beginning in making our urban landscapes less inhospitable to bees and other pollinators. No Mow May is a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on the needs of native bees and highlight the problems with what might be called “typical” lawn care and gardening. You can continue to mow less and at different lengths throughout the summer. To truly have a lasting impact, we need to reduce the area devoted to lawns and replace them with native plantings, including native flowers, trees and shrubs.