What’s with the grass?
When Joe and I visited England last May, I was surprised to see some of the church yards looking a bit overgrown. Fresh buttercups, clover and dandelions grew between the old tombstones, which was strangely lovely. I wondered if the churches didn’t have enough help with upkeep until I saw the signage: No Mow May. I had never heard of it. But individuals, churches and parks were letting parts of their property go wild for a bit.
I looked it up when I got home. No Mow May began in 2019, in the United Kingdom, by an organization called Plantlife. The idea is to pause or reduce mowing lawns in the early spring in order to provide temporary habitat and food for emerging pollinators, until more plants and flowers come into bloom. The hope is also to raise awareness of the value of biodiversity and encourage people to plant native species.
When we came home, Joe and I let part of our backyard and a portion of the drip line under our trees go unmowed- it was interesting to see what came up. This year your gracious lawn steward leader, David, agreed to set aside a portion of the field at St. Luke’s for a “test patch” to go unmowed in May. The experiment goes hand-in-hand with our “Faith Actions Impacting The Habitat” (FAITH) project and our pollinator garden by the parking lot, a stop on “the Butterfly Highway,” created by the Winged Warrior, aka Kit. We probably won’t let the entire field go unmowed since so many people use it for recreation and prayer. But, who knows? Maybe we will like it so much that the lawn stewards can have a little break and the pollinators can have some extra flowers.
