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Managing Lawns
- Maintaining formal lawns
consumes vast amounts of energy - reduce their size and replace parts
with wildflower meadows.
- Try turning part of your lawn
into a wildflower habitat.
- Hay crops grown on lawns provide
nectar and pollen for many insects.
- Hay crops on lawns offer seeds
for birds, especially if the hay is cut and left to dry. Sparrows,
bullfinches and even corn buntings may come in to feed.
- Hay crops on lawns provide cover
during the summer for amphibians - but cut the lawn carefully to avoid
fatalities.
- Lawn meadows can be a refuge for
declining wild flowers.
- Lawn meadows make good spider
habitat.
- Allow an old flower-rich lawn to
grow a hay crop between May and July for a show of wild flowers.
- Sow new lawns with a wildflower
mix, scattering the seed sparingly to avoid grasses out-competing the
wild flowers.
- Mow new wildflower lawns in the
first year and then let them grow longer for a few months each summer in
subsequent years.
- Don’t let yellow rattle seed for
too long or you will kill the grass rather than reduce its growth rate!
- Cut a hay meadow after it has
stopped flowering and revert to mowing it regularly.
- Use yellow rattle to control the
growth of your grass and give wild flowers a chance.
- When you let a lawn grow long,
start with a narrow strip furthest from your house, and mow 1' or so
less each time. This gives a gradual rise in lawn height which is more
pleasing to the eye than a sudden transition from short to long grass.
- Allow a clover rich lawn to have
a flowery break for a week or two longer. The bees will thank you!
- Lawns facing the sun can attract
solitary bees - allow them to nest undisturbed.
- Add fritillaries to your meadow
- cheap to buy and easy to grow from seed in a pot.
- If badgers cross your lawn,
decking can be used to cover up the signs, whilst leaving their paths
undisturbed.
- Red clover, knapweed, bird’s
foot trefoil, vetches and yellow rattle are excellent food plants for
long-tongued bumblebees: grow them in your lawn.
- Bird’s foot trefoil and
harebells make a stunning combination on a summer flowering lawn.
- You can make a lawn richer in
flowers by adding pot-grown plants.
- Collect wildflower seed and grow
it up in pots for your adding to your lawn.
- Yellow rattle is a grass
parasite and must be sown direct into a lawn. Place seed in loose soil,
such as worm-casts, in the summer and firm it down. Let nature do the
rest.
- Let the flowers bloom – delay
cutting part of your lawn until midsummer.
- When maintaining your lawn as a
meadow, mow a margin around so the long grass doesn't collapse into the
flower beds.
- If you have a big lawn or
meadow, mow a path through it so you can watch the wildlife without
trampling.
- Mow any areas you want as paths
frequently, to prevent long grass developing and animals sheltering
there which may then be harmed by lawnmowers.
- Set the lawnmower a little
higher in summer: longer grass loses less water and will not go as brown
in dry weather.
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