May is one of the loveliest months in the year as the countryside starts looks its best after the winter. It’s a time when we really start to spend time outside making our gardens look their best for the summer months ahead.
No Mow May
If you’ve never done it before, ‘no mow May’ means no grass cutting for the whole of the month! This is undoubtedly a challenge for those of us who love our lawns to look neat and tidy. However, by not mowing for just one month your lawn will provide a feast for pollinators such as honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, butterflies and moths and beetles. Not only that by not mowing, you’ll save on energy and help to keep carbon below ground.
If you’re not brave enough to do the whole lawn, why not just do a section of it and sit back and watch the wildlife appear.
On the subject of lawns, even a small mowed lawn provides food and shelter for wildlife. So if you’ve got any artificial grass or a large area of hard standing, why not turn it back to lawn?
And finally, keeping the grass on your lawn longer not only helps wildlife but will help your lawn look good in hotter summers.
Wild About Gardens has some really useful information about lawns and how it can help wildlife. www.wildaboutgardens.org.uk
Garden Planting
If you’re thinking of buying any new plants, why not make it a rule to choose those flowers that provide pollen. As a general rule, cultivars with big or double flowers contain little or no pollen whilst flowers that are open make it much easier for pollinators to get to the pollen.
The RHS have a yellow logo with a bee which will help you identify the best pollinators. You easily can find lists of plants that are good for pollination on the web such as www.gardendesign.com/plants/pollinators.html
It’s also good to create a diverse garden by growing a range plants, trees and shrubs to provide food and shelter for the widest range of species possible.
Water
Even the tiniest pond will support a wide variety of creatures and help encourage wildlife to your garden. The Wildlife Trust provides an excellent guide to building a pond www.wildlifetrusts.org/ations/how-build-pond. If that’s a bit ambitious you can create a mini pond in a beer barrel (avoiding barrels that have contained alcohol). Just search beer barrel pond for inspiration!
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