Come and be part of a global voice for wild plants and fungi
Plantlife’s No Mow May Movement is back for 2026 – help nature and let your lawn grow this May and beyond!
Over 25% of Britain’s native plants are threatened with extinction – your gift today could change that.
Will you help save endangered species?
Our corporate partners benefit from 35 years of experience in nature restoration so they can achieve real impact.
Become a Plantlife member today and together we will secure a world rich in plants and fungi
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:
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!).
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.
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.
Yellow Rattle, is the single most important plant you need when creating a wildflower meadow. Here’s everything you need to know.
What do you think of when you hear the word 'weed'? Join us as we uncover the myths #and delve into what it really means.
Plantlife's Road Verges Advisor Mark Schofield reveals how to keep your thriving No Mow May flowering lawn blossoming into June.
The National Museum of Scotland has transformed its collections centre into a haven for insects and local wildlife by taking part in the No Mow Movement. Learn how.
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘weed’? Join us as we uncover the myths #and delve into what it really means.
It’s a word we’re all familiar with, and one we hear often, especially during our annual No Mow Movement – ‘What about the weeds’?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines a weed as, ‘any wild plant that grows in an unwanted place’.
If you were asked to picture a weed, perhaps some people would think of a Dandelion pushing up through the pavement, or a lone Forget-me-not lurking in your lawn. Many people think of specific plants as ‘weeds’, but that’s not true.
So, join us as we weed out the myths of the word ‘weeds’.
Here’s the thing – the actual definition of a weed is simply, “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted, especially among crops or garden plants.”
Just a plant, in a place we didn’t choose.
Technically speaking, any plant can be a weed. Even our most treasured native wildflowers such as orchids, simply for existing in a spot we decided they shouldn’t.
So, what makes people think of a Dandelion as a weed but an orchid as a prized plant? It’s simply perception and context.
The word ‘weed’ has been part of the English language since at least the 9th century.
It’s believed to have come from the Old English word ‘weod’, which simply means a plant – including herbs or even trees.
Over time however it took on more of a negative tone, especially as agriculture became more dominant and plants that competed with crops then took on the name.
By the 19th and 20th centuries, with the rise of industrial farming and garden landscaping, ‘weeds’ became enemies. Something to spray, pull, or pave over.
But in nature there are no weeds. Just plants doing what they’ve always done – growing, spreading, surviving.
Non-Native Invasive Species aren’t weeds by definition, but they certainly can cause problems.
Non-native plants are simply plants that have been introduced to the UK, that naturally grow in other parts of the world.
Not all non-native plants become problems – many of them integrate into our habitats without causing damage (these are called ‘naturalised’ species). However, some thrive in our habitats, so much so that they out compete our native plants, these are known as Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS). These include common garden centre finds such as Rhododendron.
One in five species of UK vascular plants are at risk of extinction. The second biggest threat to biodiversity is Invasive Non-Native Plants, so they must be taken seriously.
Read our blog here to find out more.
While the majority of plants have value to wildlife, some can cause problems, mainly to other plants around them.
Think of a thicket of nettles for instance, there’s not much biodiversity in the swathe as it has a tendency to takeover. While large amounts of such plants can cause problems, small amounts are That said, it’s important to remember the benefit that plants, including nettles bring to our other wildlife. Nettles can be a great addition to your green space and support more than 40 different insects and butterflies!
So, while problem plants aren’t necessarily ‘weeds’ we recognise that some plants could benefit from some careful control. Read our blog here, to find out how to manage problem plants such as Thistle and Common Ragwort.
We ran a survey recently and found that 56% of people think of Dandelions as a weed. That’s not a huge surprise – Dandelions have had a bit of a PR problem. But the truth is, they’re not ‘weeds’ but wildflowers. And quite useful ones, at that! In fact they were once revered as a cure all medicinal herb and even appear in ancient Greek mythology.
Watch our video below to find out why we should rekindle our love of the humble Dandelion.
Dandelions are amazing! Did you know that Dandelions support more than 50 species of insects? Or that Dandelions have been used in medicine for centuries?
The good news? More than 90% of 19-24 year olds in our survey said they see dandelions and daisies as wildflowers, not weeds. This gives hope for the future of our native wild plants.
Perhaps in the future we will all see ‘weeds’ differently – as part of a bigger picture. ‘Weeds’ are our native plants and part of the planet long before we were. They make up important habitats, improve biodiversity, provide food and even medicine, they even capture carbon!
Let’s change our perspectives to see ‘weeds’ for what they really are, wildflowers that are symbols of resilience, beauty and wildness.
One of the UK’s rarest plants, Field Wormwood, has been given a lifeline to try and boost the numbers of this endangered plant.
Join us on a journey to discover the Daisy – from fun facts to folklore!
The changes to insects, wildflowers and people have been ‘mind-blowing’ since the National Museum of Scotland started taking part in the No Mow Movement.
We asked Entomology Curator Ashleigh Whiffin how it’s made a positive impact to insect biodiversity and how it’s helping her work as an entomologist.
Watch our full video below.
I have always been a big supporter of No Mow May and the No Mow Movement because I think it’s an incredible campaign for raising awareness of wildflowers and this is vital if we’re going to improve the available habitat for insects.
There had been an interest among staff in participating in the No Mow Movement, but really what spurred it on was the lockdown periods. During this time the contractors didn’t come in to mow the grass and displayed a little version of what could be.
Initially, we just wanted to see what was here naturally. The site had been manicured for many years, so the grass was incredibly short and flowers were not given the opportunity to bloom.
When we first left the site to grow in lockdown, we started to see wonderful flowers like Oxeye Daisy and Cuckooflower – things I know insects love.
Native wildflowers are most important to insects because these are the species that they have evolved alongside and they provide them with the exact food sources they need.
We have also done a little bit of enhancement and added Primroses and Cowslips to the grassland to provide an early supply of nectar and pollen for some of our spring pollinators. And then we’ve also added Yellow Rattle, which has probably had the biggest impact. The Yellow Rattle has spread throughout the 4 years that we’ve been doing this project, and it’s really made quite a difference.
I think my favourite flower is possibly the Common Knapweed because I love its bright pop of colour and seeing a bee really stuck face-first deep into the flower is really satisfying.
One of my favourite things about us participating in the No Mow Movement has been the insects that we’re recording, including things that were not here before.
Everything from butterflies to moths to beetles and bees – and one of the biggest noticeable differences is the number of butterflies in recent years.
We’ve recorded 16 species of butterflies on our site during this period. They’re not all breeding here but that number is almost half of the butterflies recorded in Scotland, so that’s pretty good going! And because we’ve allowed our areas to grow, we found that we have a wonderful population now of Small Skipper butterflies.
The adult butterflies really need the floral resources to get the pollen and nectar. But their offspring need some breeding habitat, so the diversity of grasses we have are really important.
I’ve loved being able to work with my colleagues out on the grounds and interact in different ways than we usually would. It definitely has the mental health benefits to many of the staff and volunteers.
Also, the sounds of nature. Sitting near the meadow on your lunch break and hearing the grasshoppers and seeing the butterflies dance along the meadow – it’s a really nice experience.
There’s also a feeling of satisfaction, knowing that we’ve made these changes and they’ve been really positive.
The management plan that we developed has totally rewritten what was happening here before and we have transformed the site during the course of the last 4 years.
Instead of the grass being cut every 2 weeks, we have just particular areas of the grass that are cut. Most of the grassland is left and we just have edges of the green spaces, the perimeter of the site and then designated pathways cut during the growing season. We also leave areas long all winter to create habitat for wildlife.
It’s been a delicate balance of trying to make sure that we’re enhancing the biodiversity but not disrupting any access.
The National Museum’s collection centre is in the north of Edinburgh in an urban area. Our site is pretty unassuming – it’s an urban plot that is a series of buildings with green spaces laced between them.
But we have become a little bit of a green haven for the local wildlife.
As an institution, the No Mow Movement really nicely aligns with our aims as we research biodiversity, particularly Scottish insects, which is one of my focuses.
And of course, we’re very concerned about the environmental and biodiversity crisis right now. So doing something more with our own green space that we have was a natural way forward. I really hope that what we’ve done on our site can show other organisations what’s possible.
If I had to list everything that we found, we would be here for a very, very long time. We’ve got countless moths, butterflies, bees and bugs including:
With insects being more plentiful, that’s also been great for the birdlife and we’ve had Blue Tits and Great Tits nesting on site and foraging, collecting caterpillars for their young.
We’ve also had a number of mammals, some of which can’t be recorded in the day. So, by setting up camera traps, we’ve been able to see some of the nocturnal wildlife, predominantly that’s our foxes.
The biodiversity loss that we’re facing and biodiversity declines that we’re seeing are a very real and quite scary issue.
Now more than ever, it’s so important that we use any little scrap of space that we can to make things a little bit wilder and support our biodiversity.
By participating in the No Mow Movement it’s given us this whole opportunity to look at the insect life and our biodiversity right on our doorstep at the Collections Centre in a totally different way.
It’s clear that by giving power to the flowers and encouraging those native grasses can have a huge impact on our insect biodiversity.
If you’re a museum taking part in No Mow May or hoping to, please get in touch at NoMowMay@plantlife.org.uk. We can provide advice, toolkits and resources.
We will keep you updated by email about our work, news, campaigning, appeals and ways to get involved. We will never share your details and you can opt out at any time. Read our Privacy Notice.
