By Robin Wilkerson
A riddle: How can you do nothing and do good at the same time?
Answer: Be a No Mow May-er.
Maybe you’ve heard: There’s a green bandwagon now quietly gathering followers and momentum around the globe, that you can hop aboard without leaving home or lifting a finger. No Mow May is a grassroots movement, only with less grass; and Lincolnites are participating.
All that’s needed to join in is to spare some portion of your lawn its regular summer haircuts for a month, specifically, the month of May.
Happily, there are no rules or requirements for No Mow May. Maybe mow less often, leave all, or only part of your lawn unmowed, create mowed paths - maybe a maze, if you care to get creative. Even leaving a small section of lawn unmowed can help the early pollinators who need sustenance before the summer flowers are with us. In the process, you’ll help reduce our carbon footprint, diversify our land, and possibly even make happy discoveries along the way.
We encourage you to take before and after photographs. Look to see what flowers in your lawn, and what visitors arrive to take advantage of those flowers.
And if you don’t have a lawn, or prefer to mow, you can still help pollinators.
Plant native plants - not cultivars.
Protect natural nesting sites - make brush piles for instance.
Eliminate herbicide and pesticide use.
Spread the word!
Thanks for reading this far. Now get up and do nothing!
Lincoln Common Ground and the Lincoln Land Conservation Trust
For questions: Robin Wilkerson - outsideinformation@gmail.com
Also posted to Lincoln Talk