Hoping for one less job in the garden? It’s your lucky month. Environmentalists are calling for people in France to stop mowing their lawn in May in a bid to improve biodiversity.
The ‘No Mow May’ movement has been gathering popularity since 2019, when it was launched in the UK.
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It is now often in evidence in public gardens in Paris, where authorities let normally well-kept areas of grass grow relatively wild. Often, these areas of lawn can give way to tall grass and wildflowers, which enable insects to thrive.
“I was able to see several different species of bee here last week!” said Alexandre Barraud, research officer at the independent bee-protection NGO, Pollinis, to FranceInfo.
He said that this was especially good news because “we've been seeing sharp declines in insects for 20 to 30 years now. We often talk about 70 to 80% fewer insects over the last 30 years.”
This decline can be attributed to factors including “pesticides, human activity in general, and the loss of resources and habitat”, said Mr Barraud.
One major source of habitat loss is closely-mown grass.
“If you mow your lawn every month, you take away all the flowers on it, which means [a loss of] potential resources for many insects,” he said.
“There is no life in a 4 cm-long lawn,” said Noëlle Parisi, technical manager at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. She said that areas of grass that are left - within reason - to grow naturally can become magnets for a wide range of insects.
“Lots of bees and other insect families will be present [in a] meadow,” she said. “It all depends on how you decide to manage your garden.”
She had good news for overstretched gardeners: “Take your time, rest, and watch nature do its thing. Nature knows what it’s doing. It hasn't always needed us!”
Some garden tool manufacturers are even joining the movement, and allowing gardeners to have the best of both worlds. In fact, some models of mower now have a ‘rewilding mode’, which allows people to leave some of their lawn longer, in a bid to attract insects.
