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The Benefits of Letting your Lawn Go Wild
I took part in a wildflower charity’s ‘No Mow May’ campaign, and discovered a surprising bounty of benefits.
I’ve always liked mowing the lawn. Perhaps it’s a childhood nostalgia thing, having watched my dad do it seemingly every weekend in summer. The smell, the neat intermittent stripes, the angry roar as the mower lifted for each turn. When I (co-) owned my first house with a garden and a shed, one of my first trips was to B&Q, returning with both a Flymo lawn mower (yep, the brand my dad always used) and a garden hose on one of those retractable reel thingies. That was under ten years ago. Yet my sustainability journey ever since has led to the realisation that I no longer need either of those items. Or at least, very rarely.
Approximately 97% of wild meadows in the UK have been lost since the 1930s, and with them, vital food and habitat needed by wildlife. But with more than 20 million gardens in the UK, we can all play our part in making a space for nature to return. And if you’re reading this in the US, then I can relay my favourite (favorite) quiz question: what’s the largest irrigated crop grown in the US? It’s . Never underestimate the impact that gardening, and gardeners, have on nature.
