"No Mow May"

Many creatures, including insects, have various stages of development. These stages correspond to the cycle of the seasons and nature with it. Spring and early summer is the flowering season for most wild flora. Autumn the fruiting season. Birds like the tits change their diet to correspond with these cycles and food supplies. They eat seeds when seeds are only available and caterpillars when they are abundant. Those caterpillars only hatch from dormant eggs when the leaves of trees and plants first burst out. Insects, of which caterpillars are a stage, do similar. Insects often have more complex stages, some adults only living a few days and never feed as adults. Sometimes what we see as airborne insects, like dragonflies, live as aquatic creatures for more than 90% of their lives. 
No mow May corresponds with that short stage of flowering when insects need nectar and pollen. Think of bees, they use this short time to build up stocks of honey to feed the colony during times when the nectar isn’t there. Fascinating but a very good reason for helping wildlife and we depend on those bees more than many realise. Wildlife has worked out these cycles, we seem just to mess them up. We should be doing more to assist but I’ve been very pleasantly surprised in my spring travels by the work done by many site staff in meeting the challenges and helping nature, long ‘May’ it continue.

Here where we have beef and sheep in the main, they still graze the fields during lambing until late April before returning to the uplands. The grass grows through May and most of June before cutting for Hay/silage. We have good areas of flower meadows and have had for a long time. Just an involuntary aside to wildlife. Where farming is more intensive, ie dairy, they need more than one crop of silage to see through the winter with the first cut usually in early May. Thats life and business as we all want cheap milk and food. Throughout the country there is a balance.

This is what No Mow May can look like.  A few years back they planted poppies here and this year native wild flowers in an effort to sell NMM and the reasoning behind it and doesn’t it look magnificent. I took this photo a few days back and there were bees and insects abundant in the heart of the city something a Beefeater was saying had not been the case in previous years. It’s not about a total abstinence of mowing, it’s about finding increasing areas where it can be done. In fact as Fish describes certain mowing regimes promote and lengthen the flowering time which is advantageous to plants and animals including us but it’s about knowing how and when. It’s that constant mowing to almost bowling green height that’s particularly damaging. Worst still the plastic artificial stuff!

What the club is doing is great. There are vast areas of both urban and rural areas that could do the same. Your local authorities with their  mantra of mow everything is one of the worse. What the club is doing is regenerating ( not rewilding) and has no adverse effect on anyone. Most proper farmers like me see us as custodians of the land for a generation and look to make it better for the next lot. May not be the same for the Insurance Companies, City money owners, Foreign nationals greenwashing funds, who have no empathy just profit chasing. Add in the ever changing Government directives and you can see how difficult it is to have any long term plan.

Yes, you are right, there is a lot more all authorities can do. But I’m not sure you know which is mine though. Mine, a rural one, have changed greatly over the last few years. Now cutting only a narrow swath along the roadside itself cutting much longer than in the past and then leaving the rest to nature. However, even wildflower meadows need management and they rightly cut all back at the end of the season once the growing season is over and the seeds have set. They do cut junctions a little tighter mind which is helpful for us drivers. At last fish you do seem to be getting the message about the difference between rewilding and regeneration. The latter is pretty much thought of as a rebrand mind by the few who deliberately tarnished the original concept although regenerative practices have evolved in response and should continue to do so as the ensuing data and science helps. But No Mow May alone is neither rewilding or regeneration although it can play a part in the ‘naturalising’ process. More of the same please from all of us, we can do our little bit, it is happening thankfully and mind sets are changing for the better.

This is what my local authority have been doing, since 2013. It adds tremendous colour all around the area, makes a boring local journey much more enjoyable, and saves a lot of money as the verges have far fewer mows. So successful, other local authorities are adopting the idea, and providing similar displays elsewhere. Verges are full of birds when seeds drop as well, plenty for them, plenty for next year’s display.

How many cuts per year do farmers do? Many round here cut as many times as they can to get the winter fodder. Plenty of grass, and a few herbs/ buttercups, but little else gets chance to grow and self seed, unless it’s a specific area left alone. Some do plant borders are a patch to encourage birds, etc….. but no where near enough.

Devon, Cornwall, Pembrokshire  three times most years. Farming is a for profit business like all other enterprises and every blade of grass counts. Thats life. And we all want cheap food in ever increasing amount as the population keeps growing. Here in sheep country its usually one big cut, a mix of hay and silage., and if weather good at end Sept/Oct a small regrowth then usually into big bales.

Fish, haven’t we already stated, ‘where possible and when possible’, many times in several posts on similar issues. You seem to be adamantly against any ideas or are you just playing at being devil’s advocate? It’s about identifying those places it can be done and then doing something about it. 
You’ve already stated this so I’ll go with that. Don’t forget I’m a country lad born and bred so I know how corporate farming goes and I know that there are some really keyed in farmers who are doing an excellent job working with nature and they are increasing in number. There are so many examples out there to research and back this up.

Anyway back to No Mow May, that has nothing to do with Sitka Spruce, connected grants or profit chasing in my book, it’s about becoming a better custodian of our natural world. Also without those insects which are now in serious decline traditional farming practices may be forced to change for the worse. More is necessary.

 I first saw this practise in Denmark a decade or more ago. Looked fabulous and really beneficial in many respects. It’s happening more in the UK these days, I even saw a traffic circle recently with a fabulous display courtesy of sponsorship from a Building Supplies business. Several other public places were sponsored by others. Apparently this has been happening for several years. More needed TTDA.🐝.