WE’VE ALL HAD the annual requests from Plantlife for ‘No-Mow May’ and ‘Let it Bloom June’, but you can increase biodiversity in your garden and provide food for pollinators without long, flowering grasses and tall wildflowers.
Unless you are a regular ‘weed and feed’ and mow the lawn weekly person, you’ve probably got some daisies flowering in your lawn between fortnightly or three-weekly cuts. Pretty, but not especially useful for wildlife. If you’re happy with the daisies, then think about adding some other low-growing wild flowers such as bird’s foot trefoil with rich yellow flowers to attract bees, self-heal with blue ones, meadow saxifrage for the spring and some crocus tommassianus to flower and spread early in the year. You will still be able to keep the lawn short enough for general use and prevent the grass from flowering and exacerbating hay fever symptoms. Of course, if you’d be happy to have some areas with longer grass for part of the year, then there is a much greater range of wild flowers to introduce.
Come and join Econet at Clayfield Copse on Meadows Day from 11:00 – 15:00 and we’ll introduce you to some wonderful wildflowers which can fit into a garden, give advice on cutting regimes for different groups and discuss growing from seed (and providing some seed). Alternatively, if you’d like help with meadow design, contact econetreading.org.uk
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