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No Mow May has been a movement in recent years, but it turns out that it’s really not good for your lawn or the best option for the pollinators it’s intended to promote.  The recommendation instead is for Mow Less May and Slow Mow Summer.  The University of Minnesota and other resources have suggestions to help implement them.  These suggestions can help you to decrease the amount of mowing and inputs required in your yard and provide valuable pollinator habitat.

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First, the rule is that you should try to never mow off more than 1/3 of the leaf surface of your grass plants.  This really stresses the plants, as does mowing after they’ve gone to seed, so not mowing for a whole month is not a good idea.  Instead, the recommendation is to raise the mowing deck as high as possible, which on most mowers is 3 to 4 inches.  This allows you to let the grass grow to 4.5 to 6 inches before mowing it for that 1/3 cut.  That usually allows you to wait longer between mowings and, because the roots are also knocked back by mowing, it lets the roots grow deeper so the grass is more able to withstand drought.

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You can also change what your lawn consists of:  Fine fescue can be mowed as little as four times a year, and both fine and tall fescue require far less water and fertilizer than Kentucky bluegrass.  If you add low-growing flowers like Dutch white clover or Self-heal, you can provide some pollinator habitat in your lawns, which are usually notoriously pollinator-unfriendly.  If you have the space, you could install a section of wildflower meadow, or convert some of your lawn to garden beds.  Whether overseeding new turf grass or planting a new meadow or flowerbed, planning and soil preparation will be key to success.

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You can make your yard a pollinator haven by adding flowers that bloom from early spring through late fall.  These can be trees and shrubs as well as flowerbeds.  Besides the ones that people recognize as fruit-bearing, there are trees like maples and boxelder, cottonwood, oak, and hazelnut that flower early in the spring.  Other trees can continue to provide food through summer and fall.  When planting flowers, natives tend to be best suited to both our conditions and providing pollinators’ needs.  When planting non-native species, old-fashioned single flowers tend to be better for pollinators than doubled ones.

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If you really want to provide a home for pollinators year-round, you’ll need to provide nesting habitat.  That could include a patch of bare ground (usually easy to find in a garden), standing dead wood and cavities, or hollow plant stems.  When possible, avoid cleaning your flowerbeds out until spring temperatures have stayed above 50 degrees for a week.  If you must clean out the beds in the fall, try setting stems that might hold pollinators aside in a brush pile until spring. 

 

Keep in mind that grass clippings hold a lot of nitrogen, so it’s worth composting them or using them for mulch as long as they haven’t been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides.

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Finally, remember it’s usually best to water deep and infrequently.  The usual recommendation is 1 inch once a week, preferably in early morning.  The exception to this is if you’re using drip irrigation to water individual plants.