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Bluebird parents, like this male (right), must find literally thousands of caterpillars to feed their nestlings and fledglings. Photo credit: John Pastore (NRS '22)
The No-Mow May movement is an initial step in making our landscapes more hospitable to bees and other pollinators. To support them throughout their life cycles, we need to change how we manage our landscapes all year, not just in May.
1. “No Mow May” provides only temporary support for native bees. As Matthew Shepherd of the Xerces Society writes, “It’s the ecological equivalent of opening a fast-food restaurant on every corner – for a short amount of time. At best, burgers and fries for a while, but not a sustained full-service menu of healthy nutrition and habitat for pollinators.”
2. Any benefits are canceled when we start mowing in June.
3. It doesn’t support our native flowering plants. The movement started in Britain where many of the flowering lawn weeds (e.g., dandelions) that no-mow protects are native; here they don’t support our specialist native bees.
We can strive for a more natural landscape that provides better habitat:
• Food (pollen and nectar) in spring, summer and fall. (Trees and shrubs are just as important as perennials!)
• Shelter. Logs, brush piles, leaf “litter” and standing dead trees all provide critical habitat for all sorts of critters, great and small.
• Appropriate nesting areas. For bumblebees and many of our native bees, that’s the ground (either bare/unmulched or under leaves, depending on the species). For others, it’s cavities in the stems of raspberry and other perennials.
1. Mow less often. Instead of every week, consider every other week. Studies indicate that reducing the frequency of mowing benefits bees, butterflies, grasshoppers, and many other insects.
2. Mow higher. We mow at 5” and have found that simple action provides welcome habitat for all sorts of critters, including spring peepers and wood frogs. Great blue herons also visit and hunt our lawn regularly in the summer for snacks of voles and frogs.
3. Leave some area unmown all season. Keep a small (3' x 3') patch in a quiet corner of your property and see what comes out naturally all season long. You can move this section around from year to year so it doesn't evolve into thicket after a few years. If you want to be more daring, design a mowed lawn path through your yard and leave more area unmown. You can move the paths year to year.
4. Eliminate chemicals. Insects use the ground, soil and leaf litter during various stages of their life cycle. Firefly larvae, which live one to two years, eat critters like snails, slugs and caterpillars (free pest control!).
5. Reduce the lights. Outdoor lights impact bird migration and prevent fireflies from seeing each other’s flashes, which makes it difficult for them to communicate, defend their territory, and find mates. Further, Ecologist Doug Tallamy says light pollution reduces insect populations by disrupting circadian rhythms, foraging, mating and reproduction.
6. Clean up less. Fewer clean-ups of lower intensity will provide both food and shelter for all kinds of creatures, great and small. Leave the stems, leave the leaves, leave standing dead trees. Instead of bagging organic material, leave it be. “Tuck it under [where your growing plants are standing],” advises Mary Tebo Davis, Emeritus Natural Resources Field Specialist for UNH Cooperative Extension.
Good stewardship provides much-needed habitat for pollinators, insects, birds, amphibians and other animals, while rewarding us with biodiversity in our own yard.
- Xerces Society
- Insect-Friendlier Exterior Lighting by Jennifer Montgomery (NRS '19)
- Who are the Pollinators? New Hampshire’s Super Seven
- How to Support Fireflies in Your Yard
- How to Help Bees and Butterflies Survive the Winter
Editor’s note: Vicki J. Brown is a NH Natural Resources Steward, naturalist, embroiderer and Pollinator Pathways NH organizing founder.
