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Plantlife’s No Mow May is here – let’s give power to the flowers!
#NoMowMay is one of the easiest ways to help and connect with wildlife, and the perfect way to start supporting nature in your garden (in May and beyond!).
Join in by letting the wildflowers grow and be part of the No Mow Movement.
No Mow May is Plantlife’s annual campaign urging everyone to pack away the lawnmower, let wildflowers grow freely and help nature. Whether you’re in a city, town or the countryside, it’s super easy to take part.
No lawn is too small! Even the smallest wild patch can provide vital food needed by bees and butterflies, connecting us with nature and giving nature the best start to summer.
Approximately 97% of flower-rich meadows have been lost since the 1930s, and with them, vital food and habitat needed by wildlife.
But your garden can help! A healthy lawn with some longer grass and wildflowers helps to tackle pollution, benefits wildlife and can even lock away carbon below the ground. There are more than 20 million gardens in the UK, so even the smallest grassy patches can add up and deliver enormous gains for nature, people and the climate.
No Mow May is the perfect starting point for summer and leaving a mix of grass lengths in your lawn from #NoMowMay and beyond means you’re giving nature the boost it deserves. Leading on to Let it Bloom June and beyond, this is the perfect time to join the No Mow Movement and manage your garden for nature all year round.
That’s why we’re calling on everyone to give power to the flowers in 2025 and take part in the No Mow Movement!
It’s simple. Click on the link below, answer a few questions and join the movement.
Join today
Then sit back and watch the wildlife bloom in your garden or green space. By joining, you’ll be the first to receive tips, guides and badges and at the same time help us understand how many people and lawns are part of the No Mow Movement.
And if you’d like to help us some more:
No Mow May is the perfect starting point to get your greenspace on track for a wild summer. Learn more about how to manage your wild lawn all year round!
Not as many wildflower in your lawn as you expected this year? Here are some tips from Plantlife’s wildflower experts to help you create a blooming bonanza!
If you want to create a home for wildlife in your garden, here’s a couple of nature-friendly gardening jobs to inspire you. If you create the right space, nature will come.
As well as bringing back the blooms to our lawns, there are many ways you can get involved in No Mow May, even if you don’t have a garden.
It’s not just our wonderful wildflowers which benefit from not mowing our lawns this May. Pollinators and other wildlife bring our gardens to life with buzzing and fluttering along our lawns, borders and hedges.
What do the peaks of the Eryri mountains and our garden lawns have in common? Robbie Blackhall-Miles, Plantlife’s Vascular Plant expert, explains how grazing works to protect our most species-rich habitats.
Yes, please join in! Collectively as garden owners and green space managers we can have a huge impact on biodiversity by letting every patch of grass flourish throughout the summer. Whether you have a postage stamp yard or a rambling estate, we can all make a difference in our own way.
Yes. If you don’t have a lawn, you could pledge to leave another green space unmown, such as field or a space at your place of work. Or you could join with others and participate as a community.
There are around 270 different species of wild bee in Britain and they can be pretty tricky to identify. For bumblebees, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust have produced a wonderful identification guide here. For butterflies, see the rather lovely Butterfly Conservation identification guide here.
Ticks are very small insects that spread a serious bacterial infection called Lyme disease. The ticks live on mammals such as hedgehogs, badgers and foxes and then drop off into long grass and vegetation, where we can pick them up and become infected. If you are bitten by a tick look out for flu-like symptoms such as feeling hot and shivery, headaches, aching muscles or feeling sick, and a circular red rash around the tick bite.
The occurrence of ticks in gardens is increasing, so you should wear long trousers and examine yourself carefully for ticks whenever you’ve been in long grass or other long vegetation.
In areas where ticks are prevalent, consider maintaining a shorter grass lawn mown once every four weeks. For more information see www.nhs.uk/conditions/lyme-disease and www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk
We encourage everyone gardening for nature to cut less for longer. Results from our previous No Mow May surveys show that keeping two to three different lengths of grass throughout the summer will maximise the diversity and quantity of flowers and the nectar they produce:
Leave some areas of long grass completely unmown all year to let taller flowers like Oxeye Daisy and Field Scabious come into bloom. These long grasses provide valuable feeding material, shelter, and nesting sites for species such as hedgehogs and toads – connecting them across our landscape.
Mid length ‘meadow’ areas are mown with cuttings collected just 2-3 times per year outside of April-August. They allow taller growing summer flowers to flourish like Meadow Cranesbill, Musk Mallow, knapweeds and scabiouses.
For the rest of the lawn, you can keep the grass shorter by mowing once every month to a height of 1 or 2 inches (2.5 to 5 cm). This allows smaller plants such as daisies and Bird’s-foot-trefoil to flower in profusion, providing a fabulous food source.
We understand this may seem frustrating, however, there might be reasons for local authorities to cut in the month of May despite committing to No Mow May. Which are:
Safety first
Many road verges are regularly cut to maintain clear lines of visibility and safe pullover zones, this is particularly crucial at junctions and on tight bends where visibility is low.
Restorative Management
In some cases, verges that are being restored for wildflowers may need more frequent cutting and removal of cuttings. This gradually leads to naturally lower levels of soil fertility that can support a greater biodiversity. Mowing can be less often and later following this restorative phase of management.
Contractual Obligation
Local authorities will often use contractors to manage road verges and may be committed to long term contracts which stipulate certain specifications. The maintenance contracts in place may pre-date a local authorities’ commitments to No Mow May.
Check your council’s website for more detail. If information is lacking, you could send your council an email directly to challenge their management practice and link them to our Best Practice Guide for Managing Grassland Road Verges. See here for more detail and for successful case studies.
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