No Mow May: Gardeners urged to leave the lawnmower in the shed and let the grass grow wild next month in a boost for plants and wildlife

• Plantlife is encouraging people to mow less next month and through the summer
• This will help create a mosaic of habitats for wildflowers, bees and other insects
• Survey by the charity shows a shift towards less mowing and wilder gardens

Wild lawns with longer grass, daisies and dandelions are gaining in popularity, according to a British nature conservation charity.

Plantlife said leaving lawns to get a bit shaggy helps plants and wildlife – with an increasing number of gardeners embracing its call for a ‘No Mow May’.

The charity is encouraging people to leave the lawnmower in the shed next month and to mow less and at different lengths and frequencies through the summer to create a mosaic of habitats that benefit wildflowers, bees and other insects.

As part of its campaign, Plantlife carries out a survey in the last week of May to see what is growing in the nation's lawns.

The charity said the survey's results show a shift towards less mowing and wilder gardens, with 78.8 per cent of the 2,157 participants choosing not to mow their lawns for a month before the survey last year, compared to 33.6 per cent of those who took part in 2019.

In 2021, those who did not mow their lawn in May reported more than 250 different plants among the grass, including wild strawberry, wild garlic, and rare species such as adder's-tongue fern, meadow saxifrage, snake's-head fritillary and eyebright.

There were even wild orchids, including species which have suffered significant decline such as man and green-winged orchids, as well as southern and northern marsh orchids and bee orchids in lawns which had been left alone.

People taking part in the survey recorded almost 100 species of pollinators in their lawns in 2021, including 25 types of moths and butterflies, and 24 different bees including the scarce moss carder bee.

A typical lawn in the survey had 17 daisies on a one metre square patch, and a smattering of buttercups and dandelions, with germander speedwell and field forget-me-nots the next most likely plants to be seen.

The flowers produce nectar and pollen for insects, with dandelion-rich lawns particularly wildlife-friendly, Plantlife said.