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Join our Specialist Botanical Advisor, Sarah Shuttleworth, for a deep dive into the history of lawns – from how they started to what they represented.
Whether you consider your lawn as a green carpet or a flowering, woven web ecosystem, have you ever considered where the start of the grass mowing habit first began?
Grasslands have almost exclusively been the product of land management by men and women for the purposes of grazing livestock or producing fodder for animals during the winter. This has been practised for thousands of years in the UK and as a result our grassland wildlife has become diverse and in some cases highly adapted.
The act of managing these vast areas of grassland was done by farmers, labourers etc through animal husbandry and hay cutting. It’s important to remember that without cutting or grazing grasslands soon start to scrub over with thorny bushes, then trees and lose the majority of their botanical interest and diversity.
Lawns actually came about during the 18th century as a way of proving to your neighbours that you had the wealth and resources to have land that was not managed for farming but managed for exclusively for recreation and to be aesthetically pleasing.
To keep this grass short and neat required the tireless effort of hired staff to scythe regularly and rake off the cuttings. If you could have someone design your land and gardens that included areas to be managed in such a way, you had truly made it.
By the time the technology to create automotive cutting devices (aka mowers) was available in the 19th century then owning lawns and cutting them really took off as more people aspired to garden like the elite.
The neat and tidy lawns even stretched to far flung areas of the world via the march of the British Empire and with it the desire to create flat green stages for sports such as cricket and football.
During the 19th and 20th centuries this neat and tidy green carpet aesthetic dominated with lawn care becoming a big business. Activities involving fertilising, herbiciding, moss-killing, scarification and aeration were enough to keep anyone busy as a bee on just the lawn, not to mention all the weeding in the herbaceous borders!
As households have become more time-poor and our understanding of climate change and the biodiversity crisis is growing, gardening has been much more a mix of time saving and providing a haven for wildlife. Sometimes sadly one is exclusive of the other with tarmacking over front gardens for driveways or the dreaded laying of fake turf, all for the sake of convenience. Thankfully although the need for parking our family fleet of vehicles is likely to persist the desire for the false economy of artificial lawns is possibly waning. Overall consumer sales and installation enquiries have dropped dramatically as environmental and flooding concerns have come to the forefront.
Although the shift might seem minimal or very gradual, since Plantlife began our No Mow May Campaign, the changes in attitudes and behaviours are noticeable. Relaxing our mowing schedules and embracing our wilder gardens is welcomed by an increasing portion of British society, and the shift from immaculate turf installations to immersive wildlife experiences on your doorstep is simply heart-warming.
Influential landscape designers, including Lanecelot ‘Capability’ Brown are part of the beginning of the traditional English Landscape garden aesthetic. Features such as vast sweeping lawns and parkland tree planting are key aspects to these designs.
Patents for the first lawn mower, enabling the crisp, flat greens of aristocracy to be more readily available to the average home.
The enviable lawn stripes become even easier to obtain thanks to the development of the Flymo mower, allowing a less labour intensive technique to the weekly mow!
Plantlife see an opportunity to raise awareness of the plight of our species-rich grasslands in the wider countryside by encouraging a change in management of our greenspaces by local authorities. A casually used turn of phrase ‘no mow may’ becomes the go to hashtag to punctuate this activity.
No Mow May in its 8th year has become a household name, used to describe a more sensitive way to look after lawns and greenspaces with wildlife as a feature as much as a play or picnic spot. No Mow Movement is gathering momentum and understanding as we embark on creating a shift in attitudes away from making stripes and clean edges to more of a No Mow MAYke a Meadow!
We’re know that No Mow May benefits biodiversity and our pollinators – but did you know that not mowing can also be a huge benefit to amphibians like frogs?
It’s not just wildflowers which benefit from not mowing our lawns this May. Pollinators and other wildlife bring our gardens to life!
There are so many benefits to taking part in the No Mow Movement. From helping wildflowers and grasses to grow freely, providing food for pollinators, habitat for wildlife and helping to tackle the changing climate.
We're not the only ones who love all the benefits of No Mow May! Here, the Butterfly Conservation joins us to give their top 5 species to look out for in your No Mow Movement area.
As well as bringing back the bloom to our lawns, there are many ways you can get involved with No Mow May, even if you don’t have a garden.
We know that No Mow May benefits biodiversity including our pollinators – but did you know that not mowing can also be a huge benefit to amphibians like frogs?
Here, Froglife joins us to give their top No Mow May top tips and insights, including how not mowing can help, what species to spot and where you might find them.
No Mow May encourages people to let grass grow and wildflowers bloom during May and beyond.
While best known for helping pollinators, it also creates important habitats for amphibians such as frogs, toads and newts, as well as reptiles like slow worms and grass snakes.
Amphibians depend on damp environments because their skin dries out easily. Short, regularly mown lawns can become hot and dry, making them unsuitable. Allowing grass to grow helps retain moisture and creates cooler, shaded conditions.
Longer grass also provides:
This makes gardens and green spaces safer places for reptiles and amphibians to feed, rest and move through.
Common species that benefit include:
You may even be lucky enough to see great crested newts!
Reptiles such as slow worms and grass snakes may also use longer grass for cover, hunting and temperature regulation.
Amphibians often breed in ponds, but, like reptiles, they spend much of their lives on land. Both species can be found in:
People without gardens can still support wildlife by encouraging less mowing in shared spaces or supporting local initiatives.
No Mow May and the wider Movement benefits whole ecosystems. Longer grass and wildflowers increase insect numbers, providing food for reptiles, amphibians, and other wildlife.
Healthier habitats also support pollinators, improve soil quality and create more balanced food webs. Reptiles and amphibians are good indicators of environmental health, so supporting them benefits a wide range of species.
Extending No Mow May into summer and beyond brings even greater benefits.
Different stages of amphibian and reptile life cycles depend on longer vegetation:
Maintaining a mix of habitats, long grass, shorter paths, and features like log piles, supports more wildlife than a neatly mown lawn.
No Mow May is a simple way to make gardens and shared spaces more wildlife-friendly. Continuing these practices beyond May helps create connected habitats across urban and rural areas.
Even small changes can make a difference, helping frogs, toads, newts snakes and lizards survive and thrive alongside people.
Plantlife’s No Mow Movement is here – let’s let it grow for nature! Pledge to take part today and get a FREE No Mow May guide.
It’s one of the easiest ways to connect with wildlife and the perfect way to start supporting nature in your garden (in May and beyond!).
If you want to see a kaleidoscope of colour and life across the country this summer, then make sure you join Plantlife’s No Mow May movement!
As well as bringing back the blooms to our lawns, there are many ways you can get involved, even if you don’t have a garden.
Here are 6 ways you can spread the No Mow May love to your community and beyond, to make this year more vibrant than ever!
Creating a meadow is a really simple way to bring the local community together, whilst doing something positive for nature. So, what are community meadows? They are areas, predominantly of grassland, that are owned and managed by the community, such as parks, road verges, school grounds, village greens, church land or fields.
You don’t need to be an expert to start one – we’ve shared our tips for how to begin, what to plant, how to manage your green space year-round and how to engage the community.
Take a look at out guide
You may not have your own lawn or green space, but your neighbour or community might! If the 23 million garden owners of the UK joined forces for nature, it could transform the fortunes for our wild plants and the much-loved wildlife that depend on them.
Why not share our No Mow May resources with your neighbours and community? We’ve got posters, signs, pictures and social media cards which are a fantastic conversation starter – it could even be the start of a No Mow May street!
As well as a place to grow our curiosity, our educational spaces can be home to playing fields, verges and gardens which are ready to burst with life each spring. If your school isn’t taking part already, consider having a chat with staff to see if a space can be left for nature this year. As well as being a bonus for wildlife, why not use this as a fun learning opportunity to discover how many species you can spot?
Whether it’s parish, town or district council, reaching out to your local decision makers to promote wildlife-friendly management can make a big difference. Local support can really help to bring about change, whether that’s through a volunteer group or social media page. Check out our Good Meadows Guide for some convincing talking points or the Flowers on Roadside Verges Facebook group for some inspiration.
Our councils manage some of our most widely-used green spaces, no matter where you live. Ask your local councillor about your councils plans to provide a home for wildflowers and wildlife in May and beyond, and share their good work on social media.
If you have outdoor space but no lawn, don’t write off No Mow May just yet! Encourage wildlife to your garden with a pot or window box – what happens if you leave one with bare soil, perhaps local wild plants seed will find their way in. There are also native seed mixes you can sprinkle into pots which pollinators like bees and butterflies will go wild for!
Often the cornerstone of our communities, our places of worship can be a sanctuary for people and wildlife alike. See if your local church, mosque or other place of worship has a green space they can pledge for nature this No Mow May. Churchyards for example, are often excellent places for wildflower and wildlife that enjoy the undisturbed grasslands.
Here we delve into this mind-boggling realm to discover ten of weirdest, wackiest and most wonderful facts from the world of fungi!
Join our Senior Conservation Officer for Fungi, Aileen Baird, as she discovers a rare fungus – one of the most beautiful and unusual species native to the UK.
You don't need to travel far to find fungi. Some of Britain's most fascinating species could be growing on the tree outside your front door, in the local park, or tucked into a shady corner of your own garden. Let's go and find them.
You’ve heard all about the No Mow Movement – but you’re not sure where to start?
Join us for a deep dive into your spring lawn and learn everything you need to know about how to prep for the best No Mo May!
Plantlife’s No Mow May gears up in spring, and every year it’s gaining more and more momentum – but if you’ve never taken part before, where do you start?
The journey is all up to you and it can be as simple or as green-fingered as you like.
So if you’re looking for some ideas to get you started, here’s some of our top tips to get you on your No Mow way.
Starting a new journey with your precious garden can be daunting, and we know that many people have lots of questions – from what happens when you stop mowing, to which flowers might pop-up.
So to help kick-start your journey, we’ve put together a handy guide with everything you need to know about the No Mow Movement – it’s the perfect place to get started.
The important thing is not to be intimidated and to give it a go – every wild patch can add up to huge gains for nature. And the aim is simple: to get people cutting less, for longer. So, whether you join us just for May or stick with it all season, it all makes a real difference.
Take part
It’s completely up to you how you prepare – you could just get to the first of the month and pack the mower away.
But there are a couple of things you could try to give your lawn the best chance of beautiful biodiversity:
That’s up to you – but we’d recommend pledging for No Mow May, flicking through your FREE guide (complete with wildflower ID), grabbing a cup of tea and basking in nature!
When May starts, the easy bit begins: sign up, stop mowing, sit back and let it grow.
May is a great month to get started, because that’s when most of our wonderful wild plants are getting going for the season. Giving them time to grow during this period gives them a good head start.
At this time of year, your garden can also become a haven for wildlife at a time when it is greatly needed.
We think of May as the starting point, a springboard for managing your lawn for nature year-round. If you can make a start in May, that’s brilliant.
But really, this is part of a much bigger movement of caring for your garden to help nature. The goal is to mow less for longer, and to manage our lawns like mini hay meadows.
By pledging to take part in the No Mow Movement, you’re joining a community of people all caring for their gardens and greenspaces with nature in mind. And the more grassy spaces helping wildlife, the better.
It’s very easy and takes just 2 minutes to pledge and get your FREE No Mow May guide.
Please pledge today (you can join at any time from March to June) and help us see how many people are helping nature by letting it grow.
You can just stop mowing and see what comes up – in fact, the plants growing in your garden can even give you a bit of a history lesson on what your garden might have been in a former life.
But if you want to give biodiversity a bit of a boost, there’s a simple trick – variety!
If you keep 2 to 3 different grass lengths throughout the summer, it can help maximise flower variety as well as the nectar they produce for our precious pollinators:
If you leave your lawn to do its thing, it’s going to look stunning no matter what comes through – nature is great like that.
Wildflowers are stunning and they’re certainly a favourite for our pollinators – but our gorgeous grasses often get left out of the spotlight.
When your grass is getting longer, take some time to sit out, watch the sun shining through the blades and the wind whisper through it.
Also, did you know that our native grasses are great for nature? Keep an eye out for the incredible Cock’s-foot Grass for example. It’s one of our tallest lawn grasses and can reach more than 1 metre. It provides pollen that honeybees love, caterpillars eat its leaves, finches feed on its seed and its tussocks provide safe places for nesting mammals and bees.
Join us to delve into the secrets of creating a bright, blooming, buzzing lawn, from when to sow, to how to prep the land.
Spring sees gardens in bloom, bursting with colourful blossoms!
By the time we reach the later summer months, some of those wildflowers will have faded – but it’s the perfect time to start prepping for next year!
In fact, the best time of year to sow wildflower seeds in the UK, is between August and October. So here we delve into the secrets of creating a bright, blooming, buzzing lawn, from when to sow, to how to prep the land.
However, before we jump in, it’s always advisable to see what you already have growing in your lawn. You might be surprised to find that there are some wildflowers already there and it’s always exciting to see what comes up on its own.
As we mentioned above, the best time to sow wildflower seeds in the UK, is between August and October. In other areas of the world it will depend on the local climate and the needs of the native wildflowers.
The seeds of many wildflowers, including Yellow Rattle, need to be exposed to colder temperatures for a certain time period, to signal to them to get ready for germinating in the spring.
Yellow Rattle in particular, needs to be sown so it has around 4 months underground at below 5C to start this process and allow the seeds to germinate.
We always advise that people buy seeds from a supplier that provides native seeds from the country you plan on sowing them.
It’s not just the country that’s important though, local areas all have their own unique flora. So where possible, it’s always best to buy seed that is sourced locally as this will ensure that your flowers will grow happily in your area and be suitable for local wildlife.
It’s always a good idea to think about your specific space too, including the soil type, PH, whether your site is dry or damp, shady or sunny. For species to flourish it depends on whether they are suited to these conditions.
Why not read our full seed guide to find out more. Or visit our shop here to look through the seeds we have available.
There are many different mixes to choose from, and there’s a few things to consider. Firstly take in mind the local flora, and what you see naturally appearing in your area. You also should consider whether you want a tall mini meadow with flowers like Oxeye Daisy, or a lower flowering lawn with plants like Self-heal.
One wildflower we would recommend, especially if you are seeding into a lawn that only has grass, or one that has more vigorous grasses, is Yellow Rattle often referred to as ‘The Meadow Maker’. This semi-parasitic plant helps limit the growth of competing grasses, to allow more wildflowers to come through naturally. Find out more about growing Yellow Rattle here.
You could also add flowers like Poppies and Cornflowers to give some pops of different colours. These are both annual species, so will not necessarily reappear in future years.
There was a growing trend of ‘seed bombing’ which saw small balls of seeds and compost dropped onto bare ground to create mini areas of blooms.
While this can certainly work, and is how some wildflowers successfully seed themselves, there are better ways.
Read on below to find our top tips of how to prepare the ground to see the best success
The older and ‘wilder’ your lawn the better! If your lawn is like a bowling green, with fertile soil and no ‘weeds’, then you might first want to lower the nutrients in the soil. You can do this by regularly mowing your lawn and removing the cuttings for the first year or so. It could take a year or 2 to get your soil to the right nutrient level.
When you’re ready you can add wildflower seeds to your lawn to increase biodiversity. The best way to do this is to cut your lawn very short in the autumn and scarify it by going over it with a rake to create patches of bare soil to scatter your seeds on. Keep going until around 50% of the area is bare ground.
When it comes to actually sowing the seeds – less is more. You actually only need 1 or 2 teaspoons of seed per square metre.
Spread the seed across the ground evenly and pick a nice still day so the seeds don’t blow away before they land. The seeds can be mixed with sand for easier spreading. After this, gently trample the seeds in. It’s a good idea to water the ground lightly if the weather is drier, but be careful not to wash away the seeds.
There is another option to get wildflowers into your lawn, which some people do see better results with, which is to sow seeds into pots and then plant them outdoors.
To do this, sow the wildflower seeds in the autumn and leave the pots outside, to allow them to be exposed to the cold. Many wildflowers need a cold spell before they can germinate.
Once the plants have germinated and started to grow you can move the little seedlings into individual pots. The best time to do this is when the plants have 3 or 4 leaves on them. You can encourage the growth of healthy roots by cutting off any flower stems.
The following autumn, the plants can then be moved into your lawn. Once the plants are established, it’s worth keeping an eye on them for the first year or 2, to make sure they take properly and are not shaded out. You can do this by gently cutting the surrounding vegetation back to give them more space.
They might not be as colourful, but they're every bit as important and add movement and texture to our landscape. From sweet scents to clever survival strategies, our native grasses are full of surprises.
Known as nature’s meadow maker, Yellow Rattle, is the single most important plant you need when creating a wildflower meadow.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Yellow rattle, commonly known as the meadow maker, is one of the most important plants you need for a meadow. Without it, vigorous grasses can grow unchecked and smother flowers you want to encourage.
As Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor grows in a meadow the grass will become thinner, making room for plants like Oxeye Daisy, Knapweeds and Vetches to appear. And if you’re lucky, maybe even an orchid will pop up.
Then large bees, especially bumblebees, move in and pollinate the flowers of yellow rattle and it’s large seed pods dry and ripen. This leaves the seeds rattling around inside. Farmers used to use the sound of the rattling seeds as their cue to cut the hay – hence the name.
Yellow Rattle is a very useful starting plant when making a wildflower meadow, but it can be a little tricky to establish. Here are some top tips to get you started:
If you have very fertile soil, it might be trickier to grow Yellow Rattle. Poor and infertile soils are best and following the steps above will help reduce the fertility of your soil over time.
Late summer (August-September) is the best time to sow Yellow Rattle. It will not grow successfully if sown in the spring. The seeds can be sown no later than November because they need about 4 months below 5C to germinate in the spring.
Yellow Rattle is easy to collect by hand. Simply hold a paper bag under the ripe seed pod and shake it gently with your fingers. Collecting larger quantities can easily be done using a vacuum or leaf blower.
WATCH: Plantlife’s Sarah Shuttleworth collects Yellow Rattle with a vacuum.
There are a number of reasons why Yellow Rattle may disappear from a meadow, including:
For meadows, we recommend 0.5-2.5kg per hectare/10-20g per m2 if you are collecting your own seed.
There are several possible reasons:
Your go-to guide for transforming places into flower-rich meadows.
Yellow Rattle, is the single most important plant you need when creating a wildflower meadow. Here’s everything you need to know.
Managing or making meadows, whether in a lawn or larger site, can sometimes lead to prickly problem plants like docks or nettles. Follow our expert advice for managing problem plants.
Want to start a community meadow, but not sure where to begin? Read our guide to creating a flower-filled haven for your local community.
It’s not just trees that capture and store carbon, our meadows and grasslands play an important role too.
If you’re taking part in No Mow May this year, then your garden will be well on its way to becoming a beautiful, biodiverse haven for nature. But there is a bonus to helping the wildflowers grow – as you allow lawn to become meadow, your garden becomes your very own carbon store, helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
When carbon sequestration is mentioned, most minds turn to trees. As a society we are more aware than ever before of the role of woodlands in combatting climate change and creating a space for nature. Much less discussed is the remarkable and equally vital role our grasslands and meadows can play in increasing biodiversity and capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere.
When we create healthy grasslands and meadows by mowing or grazing livestock, we are simply replicating the activity of the herds of large wild herbivores that once moved across our hills and valleys. These habitats – if the grazing is gentle, infrequent and low intensity – recreate prehistoric landscapes and provide a home for our wild plants, insects, birds and fungi. Natural and semi-natural grasslands (meaning those that are farmed but in a traditional, less intensive manner) improve the quality of our water, prevent flooding and help increase the resilience of farming to summer droughts.
This grassland – and the healthy soil beneath it – also has an incredible and little-known potential to lock away atmospheric carbon. Soil carbon is a particularly valuable store; it is far more stable and long lasting than the carbon in trees, which is vulnerable to forest fires, pests and disease.
As plants live and grow, carbon from the atmosphere is drawn down into the plants’ roots, where the myriad creatures in the soil make use of it, locking it away beneath the ground. As the diversity of plants on the surface increases, so does the diversity of microorganisms, fungi and invertebrates beneath it. The more diverse the soil life, the richer the entire ecosystem – and the more carbon the soil can store.
The almost mystical role of mycorrhizal fungi is now well known. They connect roots to the nutrients in the soil, trading sugars that plants and trees create from sunlight with locked away minerals the fungi extract from the soil. We now know that plants and trees can communicate through these fungal networks, alerting them to pests and diseases and passing nutrients to others in need.
Mycorrhizal fungi have another important role – they are critical in the ability of plants to transfer carbon to the soil. In areas of farmland, meadow and garden where the soil is ploughed, fertilised or dominated by a small number of grass species, these mycorrhizal networks are much less effective – with fewer species and a lower carbon storage potential. When we look after our farmland and gardens with care, mowing and grazing infrequently and gently, avoiding ploughing and pesticides, we nurture our mycorrhizal fungi, helping the soil to become a more potent carbon store.
By taking part in No Mow May, you will not only begin to create a home for wildflowers and insects, you will also create healthier soils that nourish your garden plants – and reduce your carbon footprint in the process.
England alone has around 640,000 hectares of private garden. If just a quarter of this area was transformed into wildflower rich meadow – by mowing just once or twice a year and collecting the cuttings – then these garden soils could potentially capture and store an additional amount of carbon equivalent to more than 3 million average cars’ annual emissions within a spade’s depth, and well over 10 million cars in soils as deep as one meter*.
Lawns and gardens are of course just one part of the puzzle – the UK’s farmed grassland landscape offers tremendous potential for us to sequester carbon, while also protecting agriculture and biodiversity.
Farmers and landowners have a fundamental role to play – combining food production with sustainable grasslands that lock away carbon in healthy, ecologically rich soils. Some 40% of the UK’s land area is grassland – but much of this is intensively farmed, limiting its potential for carbon storage.
Globally, studies have suggested that 2.3-7.3 billion tons of CO2 equivalents per year could be sequestered through grassland diversity restoration. Carbon sequestration doesn’t just mean more trees. Healthy grassland, with the more sensitive grazing and less intensive farming that nourishes it, also keeps carbon out of the atmosphere.
No matter how large or small our garden, we all have a role to play, and we can all make a difference. It’s easy to get started – just put your lawnmower away this May!
A rainbow of wildflowers in your lawn doesn’t just bring garden owners joy, but is also the sign of a healthy and thriving garden.
The sun is shining, the days are longer and our green fingers are ready to get stuck back in to some spring gardening.
Our gardens have the ability to become havens for nature. Increasing biodiversity, encouraging native wildflowers, letting our lawns grow wild and even planting mini meadows are all excellent ways to have a more nature-friendly garden.
As we enter spring, our minds are definitely turning to the jobs we can get stuck into in the garden, to get ready for a blooming good season.
Our Specialist Botanical Advisor Sarah Shuttleworth is on hand with expert advice for jobs you can do now.
Mow – sounds counter intuitive but actually if you can get the mower going over your lawn or No Mow May areas a couple of times before April/end of March then you will give the other species hiding amongst the grass more of a chance. This is particularly important if you have sown Yellow Rattle seed, although once you start finding the Yellow Rattle seedlings appear and are tall enough to be affected by a mow, then that’s the time to leave the mowing to allow them to grow.
No this doesn’t have anything to do with roofs. Sometimes our lawns and other grasslands can get a bit clogged up with dead plant material (known as thatch), like dead grass or old cuttings that didn’t all get picked up by the mower.
This thatch can reduce light levels to seeds waiting to germinate or other plants wanting to get growing in the spring, plus it can add nutrients to the soil, which might sound great, but not for native wildflowers trying to compete with the vigorous grasses.
Therefore during February and again next winter from autumn (although check for grassland fungi first, you don’t want to disturb them if you are lucky enough to have them in your green space) you want to rake out the thatch.
Maybe this will be your first year doing No Mow May, in which case you might want to spend a bit of time planning where you want to leave long all summer long, where you maybe want to mow monthly and where you want to have short or paths for walking around. You could draw up some designs even for creating wild and wonderful shapes. Or you could simply devote your entire lawn or green space to the way of the meadow!
If you don’t have a lawn, what about creating some meadow planters? Tubs, pots or deep trays could be sown in April with a meadow mix. This will ideally be one that is a mix of grasses and wildflower seeds, which will avoid gaps for weeds to arrive.
Remember our native meadows are mostly full of native perennial species (plants that live more than one year) rather than Cornflowers, Poppies and similar, which are annual species associated with disturbed soil like that of farmed fields.
* You can find a range of seeds at our shop here.
Leave the untidy corners and wild areas – it might be tempting to start tidying up the garden before the growing season starts, but these areas of leaf litter, twigs and longer grass along fences or hedges are perfect spots for insects, reptiles and amphibians to have been sheltering over winter. If you start to tidy it up too early you could be disturbing a slumbering creature that isn’t ready to spring into action until the weather starts warming up.
This also goes for the remnants of last years plants in your borders or pots. Sometimes these dead stems and leaves are perfect for insects to hide in whilst it’s cold and damp. Therefore leave these up all winter if you can and only ‘tidy’ up when the spring days are warm enough.
Often gardening tips to get your garden ready for spring, include prepping your lawn. The main focus of this is usually to feed your lawn, but this will only promote the vigorous grasses to out compete everything else, leaving the tiny speedwells, mouse-ears, and medicks getting crowded out!
Hopefully our top tips have given you some inspiration to get out and enjoy the spring sunshine while sprucing up your lawn or garden.
If you’re looking for more ways to move towards a more nature-friendly garden, why not join our No Mow May movement?
Plantlife’s No Mow May Movement is here – let’s let it grow for nature.
It’s is one of the easiest ways to help the environment from your garden, in May and beyond.
From the wildflowers in our meadows, to the shrubs in our hedgerows, and the blooms in our gardens – pollinators play a pivotal role.
Eager to get more bees and butterflies into your garden? Follow our pollinator-friendly tips!
Our plants and pollinators go hand in hand. You might have heard how important pollinators are to our food crops, but did you know they are just as vital for the rest of our plants? From the wildflowers in our meadows, to the shrubs in our hedgerows, and our garden blooms, to our ancient woodlands – pollinators play a pivotal role.
Unfortunately, some populations of pollinators in the UK are now in decline. While there is no one answer to the cause of this drop in numbers, habitat loss is certainly high on the list. Which is why it’s so important that there are moments like Bees Needs Week or National Meadows Day (on the first Saturday in July) that spotlight the incredible meadows and flower-rich grasslands that are home to pollinators.
Plantlife, and other environmental and farming organisations, are calling on the UK Government to prioritise action for these habitats by committing to developing a Grassland Action Plan.
Read more below to find out how you can get involved.
Whilst some pollinators are more well known than other, a wide range of insects and other animals can also fall under the umbrella because they move pollen to fertilise plants.
Here is a list of common pollinators in the UK, some you might already be familiar with, while others are a little more unusual:
By making small changes to how you manage your lawn, you can make a huge difference to nature. As well encouraging a more species-rich green space for you to enjoy, wilder lawns can also be havens to other wildlife, including our pollinators.
Follow our expert guide to managing a nature friendly lawn here, or find more information here on how to encourage more wildflowers into your garden.
Pollinators love some of our common lawn species including White Clover Trifolium repens, Dandelion Taraxacum officinale and Daisy Bellis perennis. Yellow Rattle Rhinanthus minor is also a firm favourite and can help to suppress the growth of grasses to allow room for other species and wildflowers to grow.
It’s important to remember that butterflies and bees feed on pollen and nectar, so choosing plants that are rich in both will help to provide a full feast for our insect friends.
These plants are favourites among some of our common pollinators and could be good to include in your garden. Click through to our species pages to learn more.
The ‘June Gap’, refers to the time in the year when the spring flowers are fading but the summer ones have not yet reached their peak, which means nectar and pollen can be harder to find.
Here are some plants that can help to bridge this gap and brighten your garden at the same time:
You don’t have to have your own garden to lend a helping hand to pollinators. There’s several ways you can still get involved, including by making your own mini meadow.
Plant pots by the door, hanging baskets along your walls or window boxes all make great options to increase the biodiversity in your area, even without a garden. Have a look at the suggestions above for ideas of what to plant, harvest your own seeds, or even buy our Perfect for Pollinators seed mix here to get started.
Why not share the joy of creating a nature-friendly space and start a community meadow? This is not only a great way of bringing attention to plants and pollinators in your area, but it’s also a fun way to get to know your neighbours. Find out more in our guide to getting started here.
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