Last Friday, May 10, 2024, I looked out the window and saw well-defined shade on the lawn.
Every spring, there’s a moment when Mother Nature provides the gift of shade.
The first time I noticed, I was driving home from high school. At the bottom of a hill, shade poured across the road on a sunny spring day.
I couldn’t figure out how the leaves on the trees unfurled so quickly.
It seemed impossible.
I am trying a practice called ‘No Mow May‘ this year; hence, my lawn looks like a meadow.
Thank goodness for summer shade.
Comments
8 responses to “First Shade Day 2024”
Hi John,
Just curious for my learning, why you aren’t mowing in May? Do you think it’s good for the lawn?
Thank you!
David
I’m trying something called No Mow May which is supposed to be beneficial for pollinators. So far my lawn is two feet tall, going to seed, and full of dandelions. I’m still undecided whether it’s working or not but it does look cool.
Our Extension Horticulturist just wrote his weekly newspaper article on how detrimental “No Mow May” can be to a lawn. How many of us have wildflower lawns that would be beneficial to bees – very few. The only flower that usually grows in a lawn is a dandelion, Which, if not mowed would go to seed long before the end of May and the seeds would be wind carried to make thousands more dandelions. Research shows that the pollen from dandelions isn’t overly nutritious and lacks important amino acids that are necessary for health. It would be better to plant white clover in your lawn, which bees love and it is easy to leave it undisturbed when mowing at the recommended heigth of 3″. And then mowing grass that grows like crazy in the spring would be probably 12″ high or more and when mowing you are suppose to only remove a third of the grass height at one time or it will shock the grass plant. Now you are always trying to get it shorter for the rest of the summer which will continually stress your lawn and eventually weaken it. His advice was to plant a beautifully perennial flower bed full of bee attracting plants that bloom from spring thru fall, and plant White Dutch clover in your lawn which will also add nitrogen to your lawn. This way you can enjoy a beautiful green lawn and a beautiful blooming flower bed full of bees and butterflies. If you have a wildflower lawn then by all means do not mow it, enjoy it. When I heard about No Mow May, what the Ext. Horticulturist wrote were my thought exactly, and I was totally surprised to see them in print in his Saturday column.
Thanks for the great advice Kay. I’m going to share the results, and my thoughts, of No Mow May later in the season.
Part of the reason I’m doing it, whether it succeeds or fails, is to try something different and simply to be different. I’m so tired of the status quo with landscapes. That may not make sense as most of what I write about is how to maintain the status quo when maintaining landscapes. I hope it does make some sense.
There are a few interesting things happening in the lawn which I’ll share later. I keep waiting for a herd of deer to be grazing when I go outside in the morning. Nothing yet!
Last year I didn’t lower my mower blades except for the first and last few mows, and then only down to about three inches. The mowing height with the blades all the way up is around 5 inches tall and the grass really likes it.
I am all for that, I still have clients that scalp their lawn, then water, water, water, and their sump pump runs, runs, runs. Can’t change them. Can’t wait to hear all about your No Mow May.
I’m curious to hear what I have to say about No Mow May too! Scalping lawns, that may be number three behind over-mulching and shearing all shrubs in the landscape.
BEAUTIFUL!!!
Thanks Lauren!