Earth, Environment, and Geosciences @mander.xyz jeffw @lemmy.world 2mo ago

"No Mow May" won't fix our biodiversity problems

www.motherjones.com "No Mow May" won't fix our biodiversity problems

Lawns and our relationship with them are, well, kind of complicated.

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Nowhere in the article was there a link for an actual multi year study.

We stopped mowing when we moved two years ago. I'm currently outside in my hammock, surrounded by butterflies and birds everywhere, which weren't here when we moved. Fuck lawns.
- We grow a lot of plants and live in an area that has an excessive volume of invasive species. No mow may is wonderful but please be aware of invasives and act to control them. No now may is leading to invasives getting very out of control here and impacting local biodiversity a lot.
  
  You can do both. You can keep the yard under control and still have butterflies, bees, birds, etc. I don't fertilize, bug spray, etc and not only is my yard a bitch and a half to mow if I let it go or can't get to it, the wildlife that is making the yard home is awesome.
  
  Invasive species you say? Like the lawn?
  
  Listen I agree with the sentiment, but certain grasses are much more invasive than others. Like I would have to rip out KR bluestem on sight if I saw a seed head coming up, whereas St. Augustine is also invasive but dies away in a flash without artificial irrigation so not as big of a problem. If I were to let my yard go without easing into controlled reintroduction of native grasses, herbs, and wildflowers, I would just get overwhelmed by KR getting blown in and self sowing into the dead patches of bare topsoil.
  
  I'm not sure if I have KR bluestem, but I do seem to have at least 6 types of different grass. This is the second year of no-mow:
  
  Most lawn if left to nature will resestablish. Invasives actively repel an areas natural species and take space from them forcing them out.
- I have a huge yard and do my best to keep it under control, I still have a ton of birds, butterflies, fireflies, etc in my yard all the time. I even saw a groundhog or similar the other day.
- Did you just stop entirely and do nothing else? Or did you do some sort of zeriscaping or something?
  
  I hate our lawn, but I don't know how to transition it to something else. I don't really have time to figure it all out myself and do all the physical labor of changing the lawn to something more manageable. So I just kinda mow here and there.
  
  For the backyard, I did nothing (for the front yard, I did get a ton of wood chips to try to kill off the grass). This is second year of no-mow:

10 comments